Lay beliefs of willpower shape individuals’ propensity to approach or avoid effortful tasks.

Abstract

Research on individuals' lay beliefs of willpower-beliefs on whether demanding tasks drain a limited resource or are rather energizing-has shown that they can influence self-control performance on consecutive tasks and everyday self-regulation in the context of high demands. However, no research has examined whether these beliefs of willpower affect individuals' willingness to self-select into or avoid effortful tasks in the first place. The present study addresses this gap through three correlational studies (N = 1,461) and one preregistered experiment (N = 442). The correlational studies demonstrated that the more participants endorsed a nonlimited-resource belief, the more likely they were to choose higher difficulty levels on a mental arithmetic task, even when controlling for math self-concept. Further analyses revealed that individuals with nonlimited-resource beliefs steadily increased their difficulty choices over the course of the task, while those with limited-resource beliefs consistently chose easier problems. Study 2 provided causal evidence showing that individuals induced to adopt a nonlimited-resource belief selected more difficult math problems than those induced to hold a limited-resource belief. These findings highlight the significant role of lay beliefs of willpower in shaping individuals' willingness to self-select into or avoid effortful tasks, illustrating how these underlying beliefs can have large-scale implications for goal setting and effort-based decision-making processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).