This may seem surprising but in fact it may be highly adaptive. Given the value and importance of the capacity for self-control, it would be dangerous for a person to lose that capacity completely, and so ego depletion effects may occur because people start conserving their remaining strength. When people do exert themselves on the second task, they deplete the resource even more, as reflected in severe impairments on a third task that they have not anticipated. Empirical tests of the ego-depletion effect typically adopt dual-task paradigm. Participants assigned to an experimental ego-depletion group are required to engage in two consecutive tasks requiring self-control. Control participants are also required to engage in two consecutive tasks, but only the second task requires self-control. The strength model predicts that the performance of the experimental-group on the second self-control task will be impaired relative to that of the control group. This is because the finite self-control resources of the experimental participants will be diminished after the initial self-control task, leaving little to draw on for the second task. The effects of ego depletion do not appear to be a product of mood or arousal. In most studies, mood and arousal has not been found to differ between participants who exerted self-control and those who did not. Likewise, mood and arousal was not related to final self-control performance. The same is true for more specific mood items, such as frustration, irritation, annoyance, boredom, or interest as well. Feedback about success and failure of the self-control efforts does not appear to affect performance. In short, the decline in self-control performance after exerting self-control appears to be directly related to the amount of self-control exerted and cannot be easily explained by other, well-established psychological processes. Automatic vs. controlled processes/cognitive control Dual process theory states that mental processes operate in two separate classes: automatic and controlled. In general, automatic processes are those that are experiential in nature, occur without involving higher levels of cognition, and are based on prior experiences or informal heuristics. Controlled decisions are effortful and largely conscious processes in which an individual weighs alternatives and makes a more deliberate decision. Automatic Process: Automatic processes have four main features. They occur unintentionally or without a conscious decision, the cost of the decision is very low in mental resources, they cannot be easily stopped, and they occur without conscious thought on the part of the individual