Journal article
Searching for the bottom of the ego well: failure to uncover ego depletion in Many Labs 3
- Abstract:
- 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.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 522.7KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1098/rsos.180390
Authors
+ European Research Council
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- Funding agency for:
- Gold, N
- Grant:
- FP/2007-2013/ERC283849
- Publisher:
- Royal Society
- Journal:
- Royal Society Open Science More from this journal
- Volume:
- 5
- Issue:
- 8
- Article number:
- 180390
- Publication date:
- 2018-08-08
- Acceptance date:
- 2018-05-31
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2054-5703
- ISSN:
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2054-5703
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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pubs:854676
- UUID:
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uuid:abe85db4-921c-47cd-ac5c-6805968fb17a
- Local pid:
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pubs:854676
- Deposit date:
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2018-06-02
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Vadillo et al
- Copyright date:
- 2018
- Notes:
-
Copyright © 2018 The Authors.
Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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