Ignoring Stimuli Related to Self Involves not Only Attention Inhibition but Also Self-Control

Previous studies have shown that individuals high in the self-control trait are more skilled at avoiding distraction, including higher resistance to affective stimuli. In the current study, we aimed to examine whether self-control moderates working memory performance under the distraction of self-referential stimuli. We assumed that the level of familiarity of a photo of a person presented peripherally as irrelevant stimuli during a goal-directed task, will translate to the level of distractibility. Eighty-six volunteers (10 men) participated in the study. A spatial working memory span task was used as a goal-directed task, while photos of faces varying in their self-reference and attention-capturing propensity were used as distraction. The participants'task was to focus on the spatial working memory span task while ignoring the distractors. The obtained results show that individuals who are average and high in proactive control (a component of self-control) exhibited higher resistance to the self-reference stimuli presented during the working memory task, thus they were more adept at avoiding distraction than those with low proactive control. Our findings suggest that only certain components of the self-control trait may be at least partially responsible for resistance to self-related distraction.