Beyond depletion: Daily self‐control motivation as an explanation of self‐control failure at work

Wehrt, Wilken; Casper, Anne; Sonnentag, Sabine Article — Published Version Beyond depletion: Daily self‐control motivation as an explanation of self‐control failure at work Journal of Organizational Behavior Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Wehrt, Wilken; Casper, Anne; Sonnentag, Sabine (2020) : Beyond depletion: Daily self‐control motivation as an explanation of self‐control failure at work, Journal of Organizational Behavior, ISSN 1099-1379, Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, Vol. 41, Iss. 9, pp. 931-947, https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2484 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/233673 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ RESEARCH ARTICLE Beyond depletion: Daily self-control motivation as an explanation of self-control failure at work Wilken Wehrt | Anne Casper | Sabine Sonnentag Department of Psychology, School of Social Science, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany Correspondence Wilken Wehrt, Department of Psychology, School of Social Science, University of Mannheim, A5, 6 C101, D-68131 Mannheim, Germany. Email: [email protected] Summary The organizational self-control literature usually applies resource perspectives that explain self-control failure at work by depletion of self-control resources. However, these perspectives neglect the role of self-control motivation. On a daily level, we examine several self-control aspects (resources, motivation, demands, and effort) as predictors of a manifestation of self-control failure at work, namely, daily counterproductive work behavior toward the organization (CWB-O). Additionally, we investigate self-control effort as a mechanism predicting the depletion of self-control resources throughout the day. We analyzed data from 155 employees in a 2-week diary study with 2 daily measurement points. Multilevel path modeling showed that self-control motivation and self-control demands, but not self-control resource depletion, predicted self-control effort. There was an indirect effect from self-control motivation on CWB-O via self-control effort but no indirect effect from self-control demands on self-control resource depletion throughout the day via self-control effort. Findings suggest that self-control motivation is a crucial factor explaining self-control failure at work and cast further doubt on the idea that exerted self-control effort is the only mechanism leading to self-control resource depletion. KEYWORDS CWB-O, diary study, ego depletion, self-control, self-control demands 1|INTRODUCTION Individuals usually have the goal to perform well at work (Howard, Gagné, Morin, & Van den Broeck, 2016). Accordingly, self-control on the job often aligns with the notion to work carefully and diligently on relevant tasks (Dahm, Glomb, Manchester, & Leroy, 2015; Deng, Wu, Leung, & Guan, 2016). Therefore, controlling oneself at work is crucial because it allows to work efficiently on tasks requiring concentration and persistence (Dahm et al., 2015; Deng et al., 2016). When self-control fails, its importance becomes obvious: For instance, a business partner refuses a planned project because of a carelessly prepared draft; a deadline crucial for getting funding renewal cannot be met because of an unfinished proposal. To date, organizational researchers usually adopted a resource depletion perspective on self-control at work (Lian, Yam, Ferris, & Brown, 2017). This perspective explains self-control failure by the depletion of a limited self-control resource. The basic notion of this perspective is that exerting self-control requires self-control resources, and when these resources are depleted, self-control failure is the likely consequence (Johnson, Muraven, Donaldson, & Lin, 2017; Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). Despite its high face validity, resource depletion perspectives tend to disregard the role motivation may play Received: 18 March 2019 Revised: 9 September 2020 Accepted: 27 September 2020 DOI: 10.1002/job.2484 This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2020 The Authors. Journal of Organizational Behavior published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2020;41:931–947. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job 931 for self-control failure at work (Lian et al., 2017). Traditional explanations of self-control failure solely refer to the depletion of self-control resources, whereas it is quite conceivable that self-control failure could be partly due to a lack of motivation to control oneself. When self-control motivation is lacking, individuals may exert less selfcontrol effort. For instance, working on merely irrelevant tasks may be simply caused by a lack of motivation to work on relevant ones— instead of self-control resource depletion causing an inability to prioritize tasks correctly. Accordingly, lowered self-control motivation may decrease self-control effort and thus explain self-control failure (Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012; Molden, Hui, & Scholer, 2016). Besides self-control motivation and self-control resource depletion, also external circumstances of the work situation may explain why individuals exert self-control at work. Such self-control demands (Neubach & Schmidt, 2006), for instance, in the form of distracting office environments, may urge individuals to put effort into controlling themselves at work. Because controlling oneself at work requires focus and perseverance (Dahm et al., 2015; Deng et al., 2016), self-control failure in this realm is well reflected in behaviors such as overextending breaks, withholding effort, or keeping oneself busy with irrelevant tasks. Daily counterproductive work behavior toward the organization (CWB-O) adequately encompasses these behaviors (Dalal, Lam, Weiss, Welch, & Hulin, 2009). Thus, in this study, we view daily CWB-O as a manifestation of self-control failure at work. Thereby, we apply a broad perspective of self-control failure at work by explicitly considering daily motivation for self-control as an indirect predictor of daily CWB-O that exerts its influence via decreased self-control effort. In addition, we consider the potential impact of daily self-control demands and self-control resource depletion at the beginning of work. In line with the propositions of Lian et al. (2017), we build on integrative self-control theory (ISCT; Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015) to investigate daily self-control failure at work. The ISCT framework explicitly considers self-control motivation, but also self-control capacity, when investigating self-control failure. In our study, we assess daily selfcontrol motivation and consider self-control resource depletion as a proxy for state self-control capacity. Furthermore, the ISCT framework distinguishes between a person's internal processes (i.e., motivational and capacity-related processes) and external influences (i.e., external constraints to exert self-control). Accordingly, we strive to capture these internal processes, as well as external influences, to predict daily CWB-O at work through self-control effort on a day level. To be more precise, we assess self-control motivation and self-control resource depletion to understand daily motivational and capacity-related internal processes, as well as self-control demands, to examine external constraints requiring the exertion of self-control at work (Schmidt & Diestel, 2015). We contribute to the literature in several ways. First, we go beyond resource depletion approaches by explicitly considering selfcontrol motivation as an alternative antecedent explaining variance in daily CWB-O above and beyond self-control resource depletion. Some organizational scholars already applied motivational explanations of self-control but did so rather implicitly or without considering self-control resource depletion as well (Lian, Brown, et al., 2014; Lian, Ferris, Morrison, & Brown, 2014). We explicitly assess self-control motivation on a daily within-person level in addition to self-control resource depletion. By modeling both self-control resource depletion and self-control motivation at the beginning of work, as indirect predictors of daily self-control failures at work (CWB-O), our study simultaneously acknowledges the potential role of resource depletion as an antecedent of self-control failure but also considers self-control motivation as an additional and alternative antecedent of self-control failure. Accordingly, our design has the advantage of attributing selfcontrol failure to (one of) these potential causes while statistically controlling for the other. If motivation for self-control can explain why self-control failure occurs above and beyond the predictive power of depletion, this would indicate that researchers investigating selfcontrol at work have to move toward incorporating motivational explanations of self-control at work (Lian et al., 2017). Second, organizational scholars usually assume that external or social self-control demands elicit self-control effort, driving selfcontrol resource depletion (Fehr, Yam, He, Chiang, & Wei, 2017; Gombert, Rivkin, & Schmidt, 2018; Lee, Kim, Bhave, & Duffy, 2016; Prem, Kubicek, Diestel, & Korunka, 2016). However, is it unclear if self-control effort is the relevant mechanism leading to the depletion of self-control resources. Interestingly, some studies predict depletion by rather motivational variables (e.g., value incongruence and affective commitment), indicating that self-control resource depletion can be elicited without self-control actually being expended (Deng et al., 2016; Rivkin, Diestel, & Schmidt, 2018). Accordingly, alternative accounts (Kurzban, Duckworth, Kable, & Myers, 2013; Molden et al., 2016) suggest that depletion may be a motivational state. Alike, van der Linden et al. (2003) argued that mentally fatigued persons are more resistant to exert further effort. Thus, feeling depleted may be related to perceiving self-control effort as costly (Kurzban et al., 2013; Molden et al., 2016). Accordingly, when self-control demands are high, employees may feel depleted because they perceive self-control effort as burdensome—even though they are not expending any selfcontrol effort. To summarize, it is unclear if exerting self-control effort is the mechanism driving self-control resource depletion. Consequently, we assess daily self-control demands at the end of work, daily self-control effort at the end of work, and self-control resource depletion at the beginning and the end of the workday. This allows examining whether daily self-control resource depletion processes are driven by self-control effort elicited by self-control demands. Third, our study adds a perspective on daily CWB-O reflecting performance-related behaviors to the organizational literature on selfcontrol. These behaviors are less visible for others and may go unnoticed on a daily basis but may have a large harmful impact on organizational performance (Berry, Carpenter, & Barratt, 2012). To date, researchers have investigated self-control failure within organizations by looking at several interpersonal behaviors, such as abusive leadership (Lin, Ma, & Johnson, 2016), social undermining (Lee et al., 2016), or interpersonal injustice behaviors (Johnson, Lanaj, & Barnes, 2014). The obvious harm of self-control failure in the social realm is undisputed. However, the salience of interpersonally harmful behaviors may conceal 932 WEHRT ET AL. that self-control penetrates daily work on a less noticeable but very essential level as well. By predicting daily CWB-O, we emphasize that self-control is crucial to protect adequate levels of performance. In the following paragraphs, we first introduce daily self-control motivation as a predictor of daily self-control effort, which in turn is hypothesized to decrease daily CWB-O. Then, we describe how selfcontrol resources at the beginning of the workday enable daily selfcontrol effort but also are consumed because of daily self-control effort. After this, we turn to daily self-control demands eliciting daily self-control effort, subsequently leading to resource depletion throughout the day. Figure 1 shows our conceptual model. 2|SELF-CONTROL MOTIVATION According to the ISCT (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015), self-control motivation is the aspiration to abstain from acting on unwanted desires, whereas self-control effort refers to the amount of self-control capacity actually mobilized in order to abstain from acting on unwanted desires. In alignment with the ISCT, we propose that self-control motivation increases actual self-control effort (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). There are several reasons why self-control motivation matters for self-control effort and subsequently for self-control failure. First, individuals are motivated to stay in control and be effective (Deci & Ryan, 1985; Higgins, 1997). Thus, self-control motivation is nurtured by the aspiration to be autonomous and competent. If desires strongly interfere with goal attainment at work, motivation to control oneself may elicit self-control effort, helping to regain feelings of control. Second, individuals are motivated to control themselves because they try to prevent potentially adverse consequences of not exerting self-control at work. For instance, an employee may expect to be refused a particular career opportunity when she or he does not control her or his reoccurring desires to take long pauses (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). Third, individuals are motivated to exert self-control in order to experience pleasant self-conscious emotions (e.g., pride about prioritizing tasks well) and avoid unpleasant self-conscious emotions (e.g., guilt about handing in reports too late; Hofmann & Fisher, 2012). Fourth, employees have the general goal of performing well at work for several reasons, such as payment, social appreciation, or interest in the task itself (Howard et al., 2016). On some days, performing well makes it necessary for employees to abstain from acting on several desires that interfere with the efficient completion of work tasks. Examples of those interfering desires could be overextending a break, handing in a report before having checked it carefully, or procrastinating on an important task in favor of a more pleasant but irrelevant one. When such desires occur, desire–goal conflicts arise. Accordingly, ISCT proposes that desire–goal conflicts elicit self-control motivation (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). The stronger these conflicts are perceived, the stronger is the motivation to control desires (Fishbach, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2003; Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). Overall, self-control motivation is an important construct to investigate in order to gain a comprehensive understanding of self-control failure at work. 2.1 |Self-control motivation and self-control effort We argue that self-control motivation increases self-control effort. Motivation describes a nonobservable force that influences the direction, allocation, and amount of effort invested in purposeful action (Diefendorff & Chandler, 2011; Kanfer, 1990). Thus, motivation conceptually intertwines with the idea of effort expenditure. Accordingly, self-control motivation can be understood as a domain-specific motivation influencing which desires are controlled and how much effort is invested in controlling specific desires (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). On days when individuals are highly motivated to exert self-control at work, they have a high willingness to expend large amounts of effort into abstaining from desires that harm work efficiency. Self-control motivation is domain specific and therefore distinct from general work motivation because it is specifically related to the willingness to abstain from unwanted desires interfering with efficiency, but not to other work performance behaviors, such as developing creative ideas or working on autonomously motivating tasks. Also, ISCT proposes that self-control motivation translates into actual self-control effort, and it describes the conditions under which self-control motivation translates into self-control effort. If a person FIGURE 1 Conceptual model. Abbreviations: BoW, beginning-of-work survey; EoW, end-of-work survey WEHRT ET AL.933 perceives desires as unwanted that are important to be controlled, and if the person estimates that controlling these desires requires effort, it is likely that effort to control these desires is expended (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). In line with ISCT, we propose that daily self-control motivation is positively related to daily self-control effort. Hypothesis 1a. Daily self-control motivation is positively related to daily self-control effort. 2.2 |CWB-O as a manifestation of self-control failure at work We propose that daily CWB-O is an important manifestation of self-control failure at work. In particular, we examine overextending breaks, working less effortfully, keeping oneself busy with irrelevant tasks, and working slower than necessary as instantiations of CWB-O. Especially when these behaviors are exerted often, they negatively impact effectiveness. Because these behaviors can take place often, but unnoticed by others, they involve rather individual self-control processes as opposed to socially supported self-control processes at work, which may be facilitated by norms or social support (Duckworth, Gendler, & Gross, 2016). Several arguments qualify these daily behaviors as manifestations of self-control failure at work. First, these daily behaviors occur when persons give in to desires. For instance, when working less effortfully, employees may give in to their desire to reduce demands at work. These behaviors can be regarded as examples of self-control failures in the work domain because they may be responses to desires conflicting with the general goal to perform well (Dalal et al., 2009; Diefendorff & Mehta, 2007). Second, because self-control at work relates to carrying out tasks with concentration and diligence (Dahm et al., 2015; Deng et al., 2016), self-control failure becomes evident in behavior undermining effective task execution. Daily CWB-O encompasses behaviors that undermine effective task execution (Dalal et al., 2009). For instance, when breaks are taken too long, time for tasks becomes misallocated and thus undermines effective work. Third, when a person does not exert self-control, actions with immediate advantages may be favored (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1994; Inzlicht & Schmeichel, 2012). Accordingly, daily CWB-O offers immediate advantages at work, such as easing current task demands, enhancing rest time, and decreasing work time on aversive tasks. For instance, employees may work on irrelevant tasks, which are more interesting than relevant ones, providing an immediate advantage over the long-term goal of getting work done adequately. ISCT proposes that self-control failure occurs when self-control effort invested to battle unwanted desires is insufficient (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). Thus, a specific instance of CWB-O will occur when self-control effort to tackle the specific related desire is insufficient. When individuals increase their self-control effort, CWB-O is less likely. Accordingly, we propose that daily self-control effort is negatively related to daily CWB-O. Hypothesis 1b. Daily self-control effort is negatively related to daily CWB-O. 2.3 |Self-control effort as a mechanism linking self-control motivation to CWB-O As argued above, daily self-control motivation should increase self-control effort, which should decrease the likelihood of daily CWB-O. In alignment with ISCT, we propose an indirect effect of daily self-control motivation on daily CWB-O via daily self-control effort. Insufficient self-control effort can be caused by insufficient motivation to control desires (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). This highlights the essential function of self-control motivation to mobilize effort for self-control, preventing undesirable behaviors at work. Accordingly, organizational scholars increasingly regard self-control motivation as important for understanding self-control failure on the job (Lian, Brown, et al., 2014; Lian, Ferris, et al., 2014). Noteworthy, these scholars examine behaviors on the job, which adequately depict self-control failure in the organizational realm (e.g., organizational deviance and supervisor-directed aggression). However, organizational research so far has not explicitly tested whether self-control effort is the mechanism responsible for connecting self-control motivation to the decrease of undesirable work behaviors manifested in self-control failures. ISCT explicitly proposes that self-control motivation increases effort, which should decrease self-control failures (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). Thus, we hypothesize and test explicitly that self-control motivation fosters self-control effort, which helps to prevent daily CWB-O. More specifically, we expect an indirect negative effect of daily self-control motivation on CWB-O via daily self-control effort. Hypothesis 1c. There is an indirect negative effect of daily selfcontrol motivation on CWB-O through daily self-control effort. 2.4 |Self-control resource depletion and selfcontrol effort In our study, we consider self-control resource depletion as a proxy for what Kotabe and Hofmann (2016) called state self-control capacity. ISCT explains that self-control capacity comprises nonmotivational cognitive resources. Self-control capacity can be differentiated in trait selfcontrol and state self-control resources. Trait self-control capacity refers to the general, overall capacity of a person to exert self-control, whereas state self-control resources refer to a person's momentary capacity to exert self-control (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2016; Lian et al., 2017). We propose that self-control resource depletion (i.e., diminished state self-control capacity) fosters withholding self-control effort. The state cognitive self-control resources, on which we focus in our study, can be used to control desires, for instance, by inhibiting desires or directing attention away from desire-eliciting stimuli. When cognitive resources are depleted, the proposed consequence 934 WEHRT ET AL. is reduced state self-control capacity. When self-control capacity is reduced, exerting self-control becomes more difficult (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015, 2016). Effort allocation is guided by a concern for resource conservation (Brehm & Self, 1989; Kruglanski et al., 2012). Thus, when self-control resources are depleted, self-control capacity is limited, and individuals are more reluctant to invest further resources into effortful self-control. Furthermore, when self-control resources are depleted, exerting self-control is perceived as more aversive than in situations where resources are abundant (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2016). Accordingly, Boksem and Tops (2008) have interpreted the perception of mental fatigue as an adaptive signal for reevaluating the energetic costs and rewards of the current behavioral strategy. For instance, an employee working on an attention-demanding task and perceiving that cognitive resources are scarce may tend to favor more resource-conserving behaviors (e.g., resting and processing taskrelevant information more shallowly). Therefore, when individuals perceive resources as scarce (i.e., depleted), the likelihood of abstaining from exerting self-control effort increases. Individuals start each workday with varying levels of self-control resources (Lanaj, Johnson, & Wang, 2016). The morning level of self-control resources could be seen as a starting point for self-control failure that may unfold within the workday. Thus, we propose that individuals are likely to respond to self-control resource depletion at the beginning of the workday with reduced self-control effort because exerting effort is more aversive and behavior that helps to conserve resources appears more valuable. Hypothesis 2a. Self-control resource depletion at the beginning of work is negatively related to daily self-control effort. Working depletes self-control resources because employees are commonly motivated to fulfill at least minimum standards of performance, which requires exerting self-control effort in order to tackle desires interfering with the execution of work (Howard et al., 2016; Lian et al., 2017). According to ISCT, the exertion of self-control effort can lead to a decrease in self-control capacity. As self-control capacity results from the availability of self-control resources, lowered selfcontrol capacity may be due to a state of depleted self-control resources (Kotabe & Hofmann, 2016). The idea that self-control effort exertion consumes self-control resources is also a fundamental tenet of the ego-depletion perspective (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998; Baumeister & Vohs, 2016). Individuals do not only begin but also end their workday with varying levels of self-control resources. Thus, self-control resource levels at the end of work refer to the final state of self-control resource depletion processes that have unfolded within the workday. On some days, individuals exert more self-control effort at work than on other days, which should increase self-control resource depletion. Hypothesis 2b. Daily self-control effort is positively related to self-control resource depletion throughout the workday. 2.5 |Self-control effort as a mechanism linking self-control demands to self-control resource depletion In addition, self-control demands affect self-control effort and resource depletion in the organizational context. Neubach and Schmidt (2006) introduced the concept of self-control demands referring to external self-control requirements at work. Self-control demands comprise three facets, namely, impulse control (i.e., requirements to inhibit spontaneous, impulsive responses), resisting (i.e., requirements to ignore and resist distractions that are not relevant for tasks), and overcoming inner resistances (i.e., requirements to overcome situations where motivation to work on a particular task is deficient). Self-control demands vary daily (Rivkin, Diestel, & Schmidt, 2015; Sonnentag, Pundt, & Venz, 2017). For instance, on a particular day, an unpleasant but important client may place higher self-control requirements on employees, whereas on other days, clients behave friendlier, making it less effortful to cooperate efficiently. Self-control demands represent a central aspect of the job linking work environments with the likelihood of self-control failure. Selfcontrol demands are aspects of the environment confining behavioral options, thus increasing external demands to act in a self-controlled way. When self-control demands are high, acting upon desires has higher costs. For instance, on days when colleagues chat loudly in the adjacent office, it may be more difficult to concentrate on relevant tasks. Thus, self-control demands are environmental factors that increase the perceived need to increase self-control effort. Accordingly, field studies indicate that daily self-control demands relate to states of exhaustion or depletion (Diestel & Schmidt, 2011; Rivkin et al., 2018). Thus, we expect that self-control demands will be positively related to self-control effort. Hypothesis 3a. Daily self-control demands are positively related to daily self-control effort. Because self-control demands press employees to exert selfcontrol effort, they may make the depletion of self-control resources more likely and more intense. Accordingly, research has indicated that daily self-control demands are related to psychological costs, such as lower work engagement, increased need for recovery, and higher depletion levels (Rivkin et al., 2018). Furthermore, high self-control demands may increase self-control resource depletion for several additional reasons. First, heightened self-control demands foster perceptions of incapacities to adequately tackle work tasks. These perceptions may additionally foster selfcontrol resource depletion. Second, some daily self-control demands can only be managed with a narrow range of behavioral strategies. For instance, understanding a poorly structured document either requires additional concentration or additional restructuring of the document. Thus, choosing resource-conserving behavioral strategies may not be available for certain self-control demands. Third, selfcontrol demands may elicit or increase the salience of one's own WEHRT ET AL.935 desires. For instance, when colleagues take a break, the desire to interrupt one's own work and join one's colleagues may become salient and more intense. Thus, we expect that self-control demands will be positively related to self-control resource depletion. Hypothesis 3b. Daily self-control demands are positively related to self-control resource depletion throughout the workday. Overall, we propose that responding to self-control demands requires increased self-control effort, which constitutes the mechanism responsible for the depletion of self-control resources (Baumeister et al., 1998; Baumeister & Vohs, 2016; Kotabe & Hofmann, 2015). Hypothesis 3c. There is an indirect positive effect of daily selfcontrol demands on self-control resource depletion throughout the day via daily self-control effort. 3|METHOD 3.1 |Sample and procedure The data for this diary study were collected within a larger research project on stress and self-control at work conducted in Germany. 1 Study participants were recruited with the help of undergraduates students, which often is a means for increasing response rates (Demerouti & Rispens, 2014). Following suggestions for studentrecruited samples (Wheeler, Shanine, Leon, & Whitman, 2014), the first two authors of this paper monitored study registration and were responsible for all communication with participants (e.g., instructing participants, sending survey links, and answering questions), ensuring the validity of our data (e.g., participants were actual employees working at least 6 h per day). Information regarding the study was spread via an online flyer on social media websites, especially on www.xing.de and www.facebook. com. Additionally, students recruited participants from their social networks (e.g., organizations they formerly worked in). Participants of the study participated in a lottery and were eligible to win one of two vouchers of 50€from a large online retailer. Recruited participants had to work at least 6 h a day. Shift workers were not eligible for study participation. The recruiting students were not aware of the specific hypotheses of the present study. One hundred eighty-nine employees registered for the study and filled in an entrance survey in which person-level variables (e.g., demographic data) were assessed. After filling in the entrance survey, participants received three daily surveys during two regular work weeks (Monday to Friday). The first survey (beginning-of-work survey) had to be filled in shortly prior to the beginning of work, and the second survey (end-of-work survey) at the end of work. Another survey had to be filled in prior to bedtime but was not part of the present study. Participants received all survey links via email. Participants provided 1,354 beginning-of-work surveys and 1,325 end-of-work surveys. We excluded daily surveys from the dataset when (1) beginning-of-work surveys were filled in after 10:30 a.m. (except for cases where participants in the end-of-work surveys indicated that they started work later) and (2) when end-of-work surveys were filled in after 8:00 p.m. (except for a few cases where participants indicated another time for the end of work and the survey completion was within a 1-h range of the indicated time). Furthermore, we excluded surveys when participants reported that they were absent from work due to illness or vacation. In a next step, we matched beginning-of-work surveys with end-of-work surveys. Each participant had to provide at least two matched beginning-of-work and end-of-work surveys for 2 days in order to allow for within-person predictions. The resulting sample used for the analysis consisted of 155 participants (48.4% female), providing data from 1,051 matched days. On average, participants provided 6.78 daily records. In this final sample, average age was 37.9 years (SD = 12.5), and average organizational tenure was 8.8 years (SD = 9.1). On average, participants worked 38.4 h per week (SD = 4.0). One hundred eighteen participants (76%) had regular contact with clients, patients, or other service recipients. Forty participants (26%) held a leadership position. Sixty-eight participants (43.9%) had a university or similar degree. Indicating the generalizability of our sample, participants held a broad range of jobs and worked, for example, as accountants, architectural draftsmen, business consultants, business economists, carpenters, commercial drivers, engineers, kindergarten teachers, market researchers, medical assistants, nurturers, physiotherapists, product managers, purchasing agents, salespersons, secretaries, schoolteachers, warehousemen, and technicians. In terms of various industrial sectors (categorized according to the European NACE system), participants worked in various domains, including manufacturing (14.8%); human health and social work activities (9.0%); other service activities (9.0%); education (7.7%); public administration and defense; compulsory social security (7.1%); wholesale and retail trade; repair or motor vehicles (7.1%); or banks and private insurance (5.2%). Several field studies on self-control failure at work relied on specific samples restricted to certain occupations or branches, which are characterized by high time pressure (e.g., academics, Dahm et al., 2015) or high emotional demands (e.g., health-care employees, Deng et al., 2016; Diestel & Schmidt, 2011). In these occupations, high self-control demands may influence how self-control failure unfold. Therefore, the variety of jobs and branches in our sample may ensure that relevant self-control aspects are captured more broadly. We checked for selective attrition by testing whether the 155 individuals who were included in the final dataset differed from the 34 individuals who filled in the general survey but were not included in the final dataset. Analyses revealed no significant differences with respect to gender, χ 2 (1, N= 189) = 2.97, p= .085, education level (dichotomously coded: 0 = without university degree,1=with university degree), χ 2 (1, N= 189) = 2.09, p= .149, and family status, χ 2 (1, N= 189) = 0.49, p= .485, but significant differences in age, t 1 This is the first publication from this dataset. 936 WEHRT ET AL. (187) = −4.00, p< .001, with participants in the final dataset being older (M= 37.9 in the final dataset; M= 29.0 in the dropout group). 3.2 |Measures Surveys were administered in German. If necessary, we applied a back-translation procedure to create German versions of the scales used in the study (Brislin, 1970). If not stated otherwise, participants answered all items on a 5-point rating scale ranging from 1 (not true at all)to5(very true). When designing our study, the following considerations guided our decision about when to assess which construct. First, we aimed at assessing each construct at the very time point when it could best capture the respective states and experiences. Daily self-control motivation was assessed in the morning because it was hypothesized to predict the invested self-control effort throughout the workday. Selfcontrol resource depletion was assessed two times, first at the beginning of work referring to the initial state level of depleted self-control resources and second at the end of work referring to the end-of-work state level of depleted self-control resources. We assessed daily selfcontrol demands at the end of work retrospectively for the whole workday because individuals may not be able to reliably anticipate upcoming self-control demands for the whole workday at the beginning of work because; for instance, unforeseen tasks may occur during the day, requiring additional self-control. Alike, we choose to measure daily self-control effort in the end-of-work survey because it may be difficult for individuals to report their daily self-control effort in advance. Even though individuals may plan to exert a lot of selfcontrol effort on a given day, they may not do so because, for instance, tasks might be more complex and thus require more selfcontrol effort than anticipated. Further, self-control effort was assessed at the end of work because conceptually it should result from self-control depletion at the beginning of work, from self-control demands experienced throughout the day and individuals' self-control motivation. Also, daily CWB-O was assessed in the end-of-work survey to assure that individuals can report their behavior for the whole workday. Second, we wanted to demonstrate the role of self-control motivation for self-control effort and, in turn, decreased daily CWB-O beyond the role of self-control resource depletion. Accordingly, it was most important to temporally disentangle the assessment of daily self-control motivation and initial self-control resource depletion at the beginning of work on the one hand and daily self-control effort and daily CWB-O on the other hand. 3.2.1 |Variables measured in the beginning-ofwork survey Self-control resource depletion at the beginning of work We assessed state self-control resource depletion in the beginningof-work survey using five items from the English state self-control scale by Ciarocco et al. (2007) commonly used in field studies. These items correspond to German items from Bertrams et al. (2011). A sample item is “Right now, it would take a lot of effort for me to concentrate on something.”The scale is commonly used in recent well-recognized organizational studies (e.g., Lanaj et al., 2016; Sayre, Grandey, & Chi, 2020). Mean Cronbach's alpha over 10 workdays was .91 (range .86 to .94). Daily self-control motivation To assess daily self-control motivation, we formulated nine items in the beginning-of-work survey based on the wording of the items in the self-control demands scale (Neubach & Schmidt, 2006; Schmidt & Diestel, 2015). We adjusted wording in such a way that daily motivation to control oneself prospectively for the workday was assessed. When adjusting the wording, we tried to be as parsimonious as possible, only adding the relevant words that changed the focus toward self-control motivation. For instance, the original item “My job requires me to never lose my temper” became “Today, I am motivated to never lose my temper.”The logic underlying this procedure was that adding only the words carrying the relevant aspects of motivation should ensure (a) that relevant meaning changed, (b) that no superfluous meaning was added, and (c) that participants could clearly refer to their motivation to exert self-control in particular. Mean Cronbach's alpha over 10 workdays was .94 (range .89 to .97). The full list of items can be found in Appendix A. 3.2.2 |Variables measured in the end-of-work survey Self-control resource depletion at the end of work We assessed state self-control resource depletion in the endof-workday survey using the same five items from the state selfcontrol scale by Ciarocco et al. (2007), as in the beginning-of-work survey. Mean Cronbach's alpha over the 10 workdays was .91 (range .86 to .95). Daily self-control demands To assess daily self-control demands, we used nine items of the selfcontrol demands scale of Neubach and Schmidt (2006; Schmidt & Diestel, 2015) in the end-of-work survey. We adjusted the wording for a day-specific assessment. A sample item was “Today, even if I sometimes felt very irritated, I was not allowed to show that by any means.”Mean Cronbach's alpha over the 10 workdays was .90 (range .86 to .93). Daily self-control effort To assess daily self-control effort, we followed a similar procedure as the one followed with the development of the self-control motivation items. We used nine items in the end-of-work survey, which were created very closely to the wording of items in the self-control WEHRT ET AL.937 demands scale (Neubach & Schmidt, 2006; Schmidt & Diestel, 2015). We adjusted the wording in such a way that daily effort to control oneself was assessed. When adjusting the wording, we tried to be as parsimonious as possible, only adding the relevant words that changed the focus toward self-control effort. For instance, the original item “My work requires me to resist distractions”became “Today, I made a lot of effort to resist distractions.”Mean Cronbach's alpha over the 10 workdays was .94 (range .90 to .97). The full list of items can be found in Appendix A. Daily CWB-O We measured participants' daily CWB-O retrospectively for the workday with four items (Dalal et al., 2009). A sample item was “Today, I worked slower than necessary.”Mean Cronbach's alpha over the 10 workdays was .83 (range .74 to .87). Similarly to Fehr et al. (2017), we only used those items from the original scale (a) that we expected to substantially vary on a daily level, (b) that refer to performance-related events usually occurring within the workplace, and (c) that are relevant to a wide range of occupations. 3.2.3 |Control variables Negative affect at the beginning of work We controlled for negative affect at the beginning of work in all analyses in order to rule out alternative explanations for our withinperson level results; first, that daily self-control effort is only due to emotion regulation processes; second, that self-control resource depletion at the end of work is only an artifact of prior emotion regulation processes; and finally, that daily CWB-O is only an emotional response to working conditions appraised as aversive (Spector & Fox, 2002). We measured state negative affect in the beginningof-work survey using five items from the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (Krohne, Egloff, Kohlmann, & Tausch, 1996; Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988). The items were “distressed,”“upset,”“irritable,” “nervous,”and “confused.”Participants responded to the items with respect to how they felt right then. As a response format, we used a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (not at all)to5(very much). Mean Cronbach's alpha over the 10 workdays was .75 (range .66 to .82). 3.3 |Construct validity We conducted a multilevel confirmatory factor analysis using Mplus Version 7.4 (L. K. Muthén & Muthén, 2012) to examine the construct validity of our measures. We specified a multilevel measurement model with latent variables on the between-person and within-person levels by letting the items of a particular scale (i.e., self-control resource depletion items assessed at the beginning of work) load on the relevant factor (i.e., factor for self-control resource depletion at the beginning of work) on the betweenperson and within-person levels (Heck & Thomas, 2017). We ran one overall analysis for all the variables assessed in the beginningof-work surveys (self-control resource depletion at the beginning of work, negative affect at the beginning of work, and daily self-control motivation) and the variables assessed in the endof-work surveys (self-control resource depletion at the end of work, daily self-control effort, daily self-control demands, and daily CWB-O). Our measurement model included 13 factors (one factor for selfcontrol resource depletion at the beginning of work, one factor for self-control resource depletion at the end of work, one factor for negative affect at the beginning of work, one factor for daily CWB-O, and three respective higher order factors for self-control motivation, self-control demands, and self-control effort, each including three subfactors). Commonly, self-control demands comprise the three subdimensions: impulse control, resisting distractions, and overcoming inner resistances. Accordingly, each of the self-control aspects (demands, motivation, and effort) was modeled with three subfactors subsumed under one higher order factor. This model fitted the data reasonably well, χ 2 (1,923) = 4,828.854, p< .001, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.910, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.038. To show the adequacy of our model and to justify that selfcontrol motivation, self-control effort, and self-control demands were distinct aspects of self-control, we compared our model with several plausible alternative models: a model ignoring the differentiation into motivation, demands, and effort, thus subsuming all subfactors of the self-control aspects under one factor, χ 2 (1,945) = 5,788.412, p< .001, CFI = 0.881, RMSEA = 0.043, Satorra–Bentler χ 2 (22) = 740.962, p< .001, a model subsuming effort and demands under one factor, χ 2 (1,935) = 5,025.471, p< .001, CFI = 0.904, RMSEA = 0.039, Satorra–Bentler χ 2 (12) = 143.001, p< .001, a model subsuming effort and motivation under one factor, χ 2 (1,935) = 5,507.726, p< .001, CFI = 0.889, RMSEA = 0.042, Satorra–Bentler χ 2 (12) = 561.548, p< .001, and a model subsuming demands and motivation under one factor, χ 2 (1,935) = 5,382.171, p< .001, CFI = 0.893, RMSEA = 0.041, Satorra–Bentler χ 2 (12) = 309.314, p< .001. 2 Because our model was superior to all other models ignoring the differences among selfcontrol motivation, self-control effort, and self-control demands, we conclude that these aspects of self-control are meaningful, distinct aspects. 3.4 |Data analysis Because study participants repeatedly answered surveys over the course of two regular work weeks, data had a two-level structure, with days nested in persons. 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His research interests include habits, motivation, and self-control. Anne Casper is a postdoctoral researcher in work and organizational psychology at the University of Mannheim, Germany. Her research interests include job stress, recovery from work, and employee well-being. She studies these topics from multilevel and person-centered perspectives. Sabine Sonnentag is a full professor of work and organizational psychology at the University of Mannheim, Germany. Her research addresses the question of how individuals can stay healthy, energetic, and productive at work. She studies recovery from job stress, health behavior (eating and physical exercise), proactive behavior, and self-regulation at work. How to cite this article: Wehrt W, Casper A, Sonnentag S. Beyond depletion: Daily self-control motivation as an explanation of self-control failure at work. J Organ Behav. 2020;41:931–947. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2484 TABLE A1 Items for measuring daily self-control motivation and daily self-control effort Daily self-control motivation Daily self-control effort Today, I am motivated …Today, I made a lot of effort … …never to lose my temper. …never to lose my temper. …even if I sometimes feel very irritated, not to show that by any means. …even if I sometimes felt very irritated, not to show that by any means. …not to become impatient at work. …not to become impatient at work. …to deal with unattractive tasks, even when this requires of me a high amount of willpower. …to deal with unattractive tasks, even when this required of me a high amount of willpower. …to start off with certain tasks when this sometimes costs me a considerable amount of willpower. …to start off with certain tasks when this sometimes cost me a considerable amount of willpower. …to get some of my tasks done, even when I really need to force myself to do so. …to get some of my tasks done, even when I really needed to force myself to do so. …to not allow myself to be distracted. …to not let myself be distracted. …to force myself not to waste my time on unimportant things. …to force myself not to waste my time on unimportant things. …not to give in to any distractions. …not to give in to any distractions. APPENDIX A WEHRT ET AL.947