Do Different Styles of Self-Monitoring Yield Different Outcomes in Ego Depletion and Anxiety?

Different styles of self-monitoring, Public Performing and Other-directed, may result in different levels of ego depletion and anxiety after an ego depleting self-presentation task. To test this idea, undergraduate psychology students were recruited and deceived into believing that they were being monitored by trained researchers for competency so as to activate the ego depleting self-presentational strategy of competence. The predictions that as self-monitoring increases, ego depletion increases, that Other-directed self-monitoring predicts ego depletion more than Public Performing self-monitoring, that Public Performing self-monitoring predicts ego depletion controlling for Extroversion and Other-directed self-monitoring predicts ego depletion controlling for Neuroticism, and that ego depletion mediates the relationship between Other directed self-monitoring and Anxiety was tested by a regression, t-test for two correlations, two multiple regressions, and a mediation analysis, respectively. None of these hypotheses were supported, however marginal trends were found for the mediation hypothesis. Reasons for these results were discussed, implications suggested, limitations stated, and avenues of future research were recommended.