Alone, Unhappy, and Demotivated: The Impact of an Alone Mind-Set on Neurotic Individuals’ Willpower

This study explored how a mind-set associated with being alone affects self-regulation among individuals varying in neuroticism. Neuroticism is associated with a dualistic approach to the social world—evaluation apprehension alongside need for approval. Consequently, in public contexts, neuroticism leads individuals to experience low pleasantness alongside high motivation. The impact of neuroticism on behavior alone is rarely studied. However, the absence of a social motivator (i.e., potential for approval) should bring neuroticism to be associated with low pleasantness alongside low motivation. Three studies supported these predictions using an alone/public social context mind-set manipulation. Higher neuroticism was associated with lower declared willingness to exert effort (Study 1) and with lower actual effort expenditure (Studies 2a, 2b) in an alone mind-set than in a public mind-set. Additionally, across conditions, neuroticism was associated with low pleasantness. Thus, neuroticism reduces individuals’ willpower in the context of merely thinking about being alone.