scholarly journals Searching for the bottom of the ego well: Failure to uncover ego depletion in Many Labs 3

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel A. Vadillo ◽  
Natalie Gold ◽  
Magda Osman
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Secondary Task ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Limited Resource ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Significant Evidence ◽  
Heated Debate ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Optimal Measure

According to a popular model of self-control, willpower depends on a limited resource that can be depleted when we perform a task demanding self-control. Over the last five years, the reliability of the empirical evidence supporting this model has become the subject of heated debate. In the present study, we reanalysed data from a large-scale study –Many Labs 3– to test whether performing a depleting task has any effect on a secondary task that also relies on self-control. Although we used a large sample of more than 2,000 participants for our analyses, we did not find any significant evidence of ego-depletion: Persistence on an anagram solving task (a typical measure of self-control) was not affected by previous completion of a Stroop task (a typical depleting task in this literature). Our results suggest that persistence in anagram solving may not be an optimal measure to test depletion effects.

scholarly journals Searching for the bottom of the ego well: failure to uncover ego depletion in Many Labs 3

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (8) ◽  
pp. 180390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel A. Vadillo ◽  
Natalie Gold ◽  
Magda Osman
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Stroop Task ◽  
Secondary Task ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Limited Resource ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Real Effect ◽  
Significant Evidence ◽  
Optimal Measure

According to a popular model of self-control, willpower depends on a limited resource that can be depleted when we perform a task demanding self-control. This theory has been put to the test in hundreds of experiments showing that completing a task that demands high self-control usually hinders performance in any secondary task that subsequently taxes self-control. Over the last 5 years, the reliability of the empirical evidence supporting this model has been questioned. In the present study, we reanalysed data from a large-scale study—Many Labs 3—to test whether performing a depleting task has any effect on a secondary task that also relies on self-control. Although we used a large sample of more than 2000 participants for our analyses, we did not find any significant evidence of ego depletion: persistence on an anagram-solving task (a typical measure of self-control) was not affected by previous completion of a Stroop task (a typical depleting task in this literature). Our results suggest that either ego depletion is not a real effect or, alternatively, persistence in anagram solving may not be an optimal measure to test it.

Ego Depletion

2019 ◽  
pp. 111-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Muraven ◽  
Jacek Buczny ◽  
Kyle F. Law
Keyword(s):  
Limited Resource ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
Ego Strength ◽  
Loss Of Self ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Depletion Effect

Self-control all too often fails. Despite people’s best intentions and considerable negative outcomes, people often find themselves at the losing end of resisting temptation, combating urges, and changing their behavior. One reason for these failures may be that exerting self-control depletes a limited resource (ego depletion) that is necessary for the success of self-control. Hence, after exerting self-control, individuals are less able resist temptations, fight urges, or stop a behavior that results in a loss of self-control. This chapter reviews the evidence for this theory in a wide variety of domains and examines what behaviors appear to deplete ego strength and how depletion affects behavior. A comprehensive theory that examines how depletion operates is put forth and used to examine some factors that might moderate the depletion effect.

Ego Depletion: Theory and Evidence

2012 ◽  
pp. 110-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Muraven
Keyword(s):  
Limited Resource ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
Ego Strength ◽  
Loss Of Self ◽  
Comprehensive Theory ◽  
Depletion Effect

Self-control all too often fails. Despite people's best intentions and considerable negative outcomes, people often find themselves at the losing end of resisting temptation, combating urges, and changing their behavior. One reason for these failures may be that exerting self-control depletes a limited resource (ego depletion) that is necessary for the success of self-control. Hence, after exerting self-control individuals are less able to resist temptations, fight urges, or stop a behavior, which results in a loss of self-control. This chapter reviews the evidence for this theory in a wide variety of domains and examines what behaviors appear to deplete ego strength and how depletion affects behavior. A comprehensive theory that examines how depletion operates is put forth and this theory is used to examine some factors that might moderate the depletion effect.

scholarly journals Trajectories of boredom in self-control demanding tasks

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maik Bieleke ◽  
Leon Barton ◽  
Wanja Wolff
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Secondary Task ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Primary Task ◽  
Confounding Variable ◽  
Ongoing Debate ◽  
Potential Confounding Variable ◽  
Trait Level ◽  
Trait Boredom ◽  
Control Resource

Self-control does not always work effectively. Whether this reflects the depletion of a global self-control resource is subject to an ongoing debate. We turned to boredom as a potential confounding variable to advance this debate. In a high-powered experiment (N = 719), participants worked on a primary (transcription) tasks of varying self-control demands (low, high) and length (2, 4, 8 minutes), followed by a secondary (Stroop) task with low and high self-control demanding trials. In addition to trait boredom, we measured self-control investments (effort), self-control costs (difficulty, tiredness, frustration), and boredom after the primary task and repeatedly during the secondary task. Self-control investments and costs increased with the demand and duration of the primary task; however, without affecting performance in the secondary task. Importantly, participants rated both the primary and the secondary task as boring, and higher boredom at the state and the trait level was associated with lower self-control investments and higher self-control costs. During the secondary task, boredom increased steadily but was generally lower in more self-control demanding trials. Finally, boredom predicted performance in the secondary task. These results show an intricate relationship between self-control and boredom that research on these two constructs should carefully disentangle.

scholarly journals Do exhausted primary school students cheat more? A randomized field experiment

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (12) ◽  
pp. e0260141
Author(s):  
Tamás Keller ◽  
Hubert János Kiss
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiment ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Future Research ◽  
School Students ◽  
Scientific Debate ◽  
Cheating Behavior ◽  
Depletion Effect

Motivated by the two-decade-long scientific debate over the existence of the ego-depletion effect, our paper contributes to exploring the scope conditions of ego-depletion theory. Specifically, in a randomized experiment, we depleted students’ self-control with a cognitively demanding task that required students’ effort. We measured the effect of depleted self-control on a subsequent task that required self-control to not engage in fraudulent cheating behavior—measured with an incentivized dice-roll task—and tested ego-depletion in a large-scale preregistered field experiment that was similar to real-life situations. We hypothesized that treated students would cheat more. The data confirms the hypothesis and provides causal evidence of the ego-depletion effect. Our results provide new insights into the scope conditions of ego-depletion theory, contribute methodological information for future research, and offer practical guidance for educational policy.

Implicit Theories About Willpower in Resisting Temptations and Emotion Control

2017 ◽  
Vol 225 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Bernecker ◽  
Veronika Job
Keyword(s):  
Stroop Task ◽  
Implicit Theories ◽  
Limited Resource ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Resource Theory ◽  
Control Performance ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Domain Specific ◽  
Emotion Control

Abstract. Previous research suggests that people’s implicit theories about willpower affect continuous self-control performance in the domain of strenuous mental activities. The present research expands these findings to two further domains of self-control: resisting temptations and emotion control. In Study 1, participants were either led to resist a temptation or not. Participants who believed that willpower gets depleted by resistance to temptations (limited-resource theory) performed significantly worse in a subsequent Stroop task compared to participants who believed that resisting temptations activates their willpower (nonlimited-resource theory). In Study 2, participants controlled their emotions during a funny video or were allowed to express them. Participants who believed that controlling emotions depletes willpower performed worse in a subsequent persistence task than those who believed that controlling emotions activates willpower. Results suggest that implicit theories about willpower are domain specific and sensitive to the domain of the initial self-control task rather than that of the subsequent self-control task.

scholarly journals The role of task similarity for ego depletion: a registered report

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierpaolo Primoceri ◽  
Nicolas Ramer ◽  
Johannes Ullrich ◽  
Veronika Job
Keyword(s):  
Pilot Study ◽  
Secondary Task ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Stop Signal ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Stop Signal Task ◽  
Research Attention ◽  
Depletion Effect ◽  
Task Similarity

Ego depletion refers to decrements in self-control performance resulting from prior use of self-control. The ego depletion effect has received much research attention, but the more recent literature reports small or null effects. This registered report examined the moderating effect of task similarity on the ego depletion effect. We predicted a crossover interaction between type of primary and secondary task such that engaging in a demanding self-control task should lead to better performance in the secondary task when it is similar to the primary task (facilitation effect) but worse performance when it is dissimilar (ego depletion). In a preregistered pilot study, N = 80 participants first completed either a visual stop-signal task (SST) or a simple lexical categorization task. They proceeded with one of four tasks classified as increasingly dissimilar based on their underlying operations and executive functions: (1) auditory stop-signal task, (2) Stroop task, (3) Eriksen flanker task, and (4) unsolvable anagrams. Both the pilot study and a high-powered registered replication (N = 300) revealed the predicted interaction effect. However, evidence for facilitation from similar tasks was stronger than evidence for depletion from dissimilar tasks. Together, these findings highlight the important role of task similarity for the study of ego depletion and related phenomena.

scholarly journals Aftereffects of self-control on positive emotional reactivity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna J Finley ◽  
Brandon Schmeichel
Keyword(s):  
Process Model ◽  
Emotional Reactivity ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Limited Resource ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Initial Study ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Positive Reactivity ◽  
Limited Resource Model ◽  
Writing Task

According to the process model of ego depletion, exercising self-control causes shifts in motivation and attention that may increase positive emotional reactivity. In an initial study and a preregistered replication, participants exercised self-control (or not) on a writing task before reporting their emotional responses to positive, negative, and neutral images. In Study 1 (N = 256) we found that exercising (versus not exercising) self-control increased positive emotional responses to positive images among more extraverted individuals. In Study 2 (N = 301) we found that exercising self-control increased positive reactivity independent of extraversion. These findings support the process model of ego depletion and suggest that exercising self-control may influence responding that does not entail self-control (i.e., positive emotional reactivity)—an outcome that is not anticipated by the limited resource model of self-control.

scholarly journals Task Duration and Task Order do not Matter: No Effect on Self-Control Performance

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanja Wolff ◽  
Vanda Sieber ◽  
Maik Bieleke ◽  
Chris Englert
Keyword(s):  
Limited Resource ◽  
Ego Depletion ◽  
Task Type ◽  
Self Control ◽  
Control Performance ◽  
Control Task ◽  
Impaired Performance ◽  
Task Duration ◽  
Depletion Effect ◽  
Task Variation

The strength model of self-control proposes that all acts of self-control are energized by one global limited resource that becomes temporarily depleted by a primary self-control task, leading to impaired self-control performance in secondary self-control tasks. However, failed replications have cast doubt on the existence of this so-called ego depletion effect. Here, we investigated between-task (i.e. variation in self-control tasks) and within-task variation (i.e. task duration) as possible explanations for the conflicting literature on ego depletion effects. In a high-powered experiment (N = 709 participants), we used two established self-control tasks (Stroop task, transcription task) to test how variations in the duration of primary and secondary self-control tasks (2, 4, 8, or 16 minutes per task) affect the occurrence of an ego depletion effect (i.e., impaired performance in the secondary task). In line with the ego depletion hypothesis, subjects perceived longer lasting secondary tasks as more self-control demanding. Contrary to the ego depletion hypothesis, however, performance did neither suffer from prior self-control exertion, nor as a function of task duration. If anything, performance tended to improve when the primary self-control task lasted longer. These effects did not differ between the two self-control tasks, suggesting that the observed null findings were independent of task type.

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