Self-regulation is the process by which people control their thoughts, feelings, and behavior (Baumeister, 2002; Hoyle, 2006). Successful self-regulation is essential to adaptive functioning because it allows people to behave in ways that are consistent with their personal goals and standards of behavior. Self-regulation failure results in an individual’s loss of control over personal and social experiences and a failure to fulfill important goals. Consequently, discovering predictors of successful self-regulation is an important and promising area of research (Baumeister, Gailliot, Dewall, & Oaten, 2006).

To date, little research has investigated self-regulation failure as a feature of personality or how personality is reflected in self-regulation (Hoyle, 2006) even though Baumeister and colleagues (2006) argued that self-regulation is one of the most important aspects of personality and that the links between traits and behavior can be moderated by self-regulation and its depletion. In a recent investigation of the relationship between causal uncertainty and self-regulation, we demonstrated that higher causal uncertainty was associated with less self-regulation depletion following a social interaction. This result was surprising given that higher causal uncertainty is associated with more interpersonal problems, and lower self-reported self-control. In my doctoral dissertation I examined the potential mechanisms underlying this relationship.

Study 1 investigated whether the social or nonsocial nature of the depleting task and expectations about the need for future self-control could account for the relationship between causal uncertainty and self-regulation (N = 181). For the social task, high causally uncertain participants’ self-regulation performance was consistent across expectations for future self-control regardless of participant self-esteem. In contrast, low causally uncertain participants’ performance improved with increasing instructions to conserve energy for future tasks but only for participants with lower self-esteem. For low causally uncertain participants with higher self-esteem, self-regulation performance decreased with increased expectations for future self-control.

In the nonsocial condition, the findings did not differ by self-esteem. Learning that the future task involved self-control and that the initial task was depleting were both associated with increases in self-regulation for high causally uncertain participants. In contrast, self-regulation abilities did not differ for low causally uncertain participants upon learning that the future task involved self-control and marginally decreased when they learned that the initial task was depleting.

Study 2 examined whether or not self-presentation could account for the relationship between causal uncertainty and self-regulation abilities (N = 88). Higher causal uncertainty was associated with better self-regulation performance, but self-presentation goals did not moderate this relationship. Self-esteem did not influence self-regulation performance in this study.

Study 3 investigated whether or not an accuracy goal could account for the relationship between causal uncertainty and self-regulation abilities (N = 112). For participants with lower self-esteem, high causally uncertain participants’ self-regulation performance was consistent regardless of the goal manipulation; whereas low causally uncertain participants’ performance improved with instructions to create accurate impressions of their partner. In contrast, for participants with higher self-esteem, self-regulation did not differ by causal uncertainty or goal conditions.