Self-affirmation counters the effects of self-regulatory resource depletion on height perception

•Participants perceived a balcony height as taller when depleted of resources.•Their available resources calibrated participants’ perceptions of the height.•A brief values-affirmation task counteracted this effect.•Psychosocial resources supplanted the depleted self-regulatory resources.

Perception of the layout of the environment may be influenced by factors other than the physical information provided to the retina, including self-regulatory and psychosocial resources. We tested whether depletion of self-regulatory resources affected estimates of the height of a balcony and whether a psychosocial resource could substitute for self-regulatory resources among individuals making such estimates. Undergraduates performed a self-regulation depletion task and a values-affirmation task or their control equivalents in a 2 × 2 design (N = 80) and viewed a balcony height from above. A rope was attached to the height to make action on the height possible. Those who expended self-regulatory resources overestimated the balcony height more than the control group (both groups overestimated relative to the true height). However, this effect was counteracted by the values-affirmation task. Depleted participants who affirmed core values did not overestimate the height as much, resulting in estimates similar to the non-depleted participants. These results were not mediated by perceived threat posed by the height, positive mood or more specific positive, other-directed feelings. Our results suggest that visual perception of a threatening environment can be affected by the resources available to the perceiver for performing action on the environment.