No Evidence of the Ego-Depletion Effect across Task Characteristics and Individual Differences: A Pre-Registered Study.

Autor: Lurquin JH; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America., Michaelson LE; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America., Barker JE; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America., Gustavson DE; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America., von Bastian CC; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America., Carruth NP; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America., Miyake A; Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, United States of America.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: PloS one [PLoS One] 2016 Feb 10; Vol. 11 (2), pp. e0147770. Date of Electronic Publication: 2016 Feb 10 (Print Publication: 2016).
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0147770
Abstrakt: Ego-depletion, a psychological phenomenon in which participants are less able to engage in self-control after prior exertion of self-control, has become widely popular in the scientific community as well as in the media. However, considerable debate exists among researchers as to the nature of the ego-depletion effect, and growing evidence suggests the effect may not be as strong or robust as the extant literature suggests. We examined the robustness of the ego-depletion effect and aimed to maximize the likelihood of detecting the effect by using one of the most widely used depletion tasks (video-viewing attention control task) and by considering task characteristics and individual differences that potentially moderate the effect. We also sought to make our research plan transparent by pre-registering our hypotheses, procedure, and planned analyses prior to data collection. Contrary to the ego-depletion hypothesis, participants in the depletion condition did not perform worse than control participants on the subsequent self-control task, even after considering moderator variables. These findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting ego-depletion is not a reliable phenomenon, though more research is needed that uses large sample sizes, considers moderator variables, and pre-registers prior to data collection.
Databáze: MEDLINE