Search results for "Ego depletion"

Setbacks in Self-Control: Failing Not Mere Resisting Impairs Subsequent Self-Control

2020

Research on ego depletion has often relied on the dual-task setting employing short tasks with low ecological validity. The comparatively few studies on ego depletion in daily life so far used diverging operationalization and yielded ambiguous results. We argue that fundamental research on short-term self-control limitations can benefit from research on the limit violation effect, which highlights the danger to self-control when setbacks are attributed to internal causes. To test the role of setbacks and compare different ego depletion operationalizations in daily life, we used data from two ambulatory assessment studies ( N = 125 and 205). No consistent ego depletion effects were observed…

2020

There is an active debate regarding whether the ego depletion effect is real. A recent preregistered experiment with the Stroop task as the depleting task and the antisaccade task as the outcome task found a medium-level effect size. In the current research, we conducted a preregistered multilab replication of that experiment. Data from 12 labs across the globe ( N = 1,775) revealed a small and significant ego depletion effect, d = 0.10. After excluding participants who might have responded randomly during the outcome task, the effect size increased to d = 0.16. By adding an informative, unbiased data point to the literature, our findings contribute to clarifying the existence, size, and g…

2016

Research on ego depletion aims at explaining self-control failures in daily life. Both resource models and motivational accounts have been proposed for explanation. The aim of the present research was to test the different assumptions in two dual-task experiments where we operationalized ego depletion as a performance deviation from a self-set goal. In two experiments, we found evidence for this deviation contradicting motivational accounts of ego depletion: Participants experiencing ego depletion set themselves a stricter instead of a more lenient goal than controls, in that they chose to eat less cookies or wanted to perform better. Moreover, only participants without an initial self-cont…

Let There be Variance: Individual Differences in Consecutive Self–Control in A Laboratory Setting and Daily Life

2019

The large body of research used to support ego–depletion effects is currently faced with conceptual and replication issues, leading to doubt over the extent or even existence of the ego–depletion effect. By using within–person designs in a laboratory (Study 1; 187 participants) and an ambulatory assessment study (Study 2; 125 participants), we sought to clarify this ambiguity by investigating whether prominent situational variables (such as motivation and affect) or personality traits can help elucidate when ego depletion can be observed and when not. Although only marginal ego–depletion effects were found in both studies, these effects varied considerably between individuals, indicating t…

Time to Set a New Research Agenda for Ego Depletion and Self-Control

2019

The conceptualization of self-control capacity as a domain-general limited resource, and the accompanying state of low self-control resource, known as the ego depletion effect, has received considerable attention in social psychology literature. The effect has also been widely publicized in popular media largely due to its elegant simplicity and intuitive appeal. Since its inception (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998; Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998), the ego depletion effect has been a “hot” topic of research and has stimulated hundreds of laboratory studies to test the effect (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisarantis, 2010).

The Limits of Ego Depletion

2019

Abstract. Evidence on the existence of the ego depletion phenomena as well as the size of the effects and potential moderators and mediators are ambiguous. Building on a crossover design that enables superior statistical power within a single study, we investigated the robustness of the ego depletion effect between and within subjects and moderating and mediating influences of the ego depletion manipulation checks. Our results, based on a sample of 187 participants, demonstrated that (a) the between- and within-subject ego depletion effects only had negligible effect sizes and that there was (b) large interindividual variability that (c) could not be explained by differences in ego depleti…

A Multisite Preregistered Paradigmatic Test of the Ego-Depletion Effect

2021

We conducted a preregistered multilaboratory project ( k = 36; N = 3,531) to assess the size and robustness of ego-depletion effects using a novel replication method, termed the paradigmatic replication approach. Each laboratory implemented one of two procedures that was intended to manipulate self-control and tested performance on a subsequent measure of self-control. Confirmatory tests found a nonsignificant result ( d = 0.06). Confirmatory Bayesian meta-analyses using an informed-prior hypothesis (δ = 0.30, SD = 0.15) found that the data were 4 times more likely under the null than the alternative hypothesis. Hence, preregistered analyses did not find evidence for a depletion effect. Ex…

The Guilty Couch Potato: The Role of Ego Depletion in Reducing Recovery Through Media Use

2014

This article addresses ego depletion as a mechanism influencing media-based stress recovery processes. Using structural equation modeling, relationships between ego depletion, procrastination, guilt, enjoyment, vitality, and recovery experience were tested using data from an online survey (N = 471). Results suggest that ego depletion may increase the risk of negatively appraising the use of interactive (video games) and noninteractive (television) entertaining media as a form of procrastination. The resulting guilt is negatively related to the recovery experience associated with using entertainment. Therefore, ego-depleted individuals may benefit less from the psychological recovery potenti…

The effects of mental fatigue on sport-related performance

2018

International audience; Mental fatigue is known to increase subjective feelings of fatigue and to decrease cognitive performance, but its impact on physical performance remains poorly understood. The aim of this chapter was to review the results of 29 studies published between 2009 and April 2018 and focusing on the impact of mental fatigue on sport-related performance. Taken all studies together, it appears that mental fatigue impairs endurance performance, motor skills performance and decision-making performance. However, maximal force production is not reduced in the presence of mental fatigue. These observations suggest that mental fatigue impairs sport-related performance during exerci…

Misguided Effort with Elusive Implications

2016

Good self-control has been linked to adaptive outcomes such as better health, cohesive personal relationships, success in the workplace and at school, and less susceptibility to crime and addictions. In contrast, self-control failure is linked to maladaptive outcomes. Understanding the mechanisms by which self-control predicts behavior may assist in promoting better regulation and outcomes. A popular approach to understanding self-control is the strength or resource depletion model. Self-control is conceptualized as a limited resource that becomes depleted after a period of exertion resulting in self-control failure. The model has typically been tested using a sequential-task experimental p…