Publication bias and the limited strength model of self-control: has the evidence for ego depletion been overestimated?
Carter and McCullough reanalysed the data from the large ego depletion meta-analysis using methods designed to detect and correct for small-study effects, the pattern that appears when small studies reporting large effects are published and small studies reporting nothing are not. The signals of bias were very strong. Once corrected, their estimate of the depletion effect was indistinguishable from zero. Their conclusion is appropriately careful: not that the effect is definitely absent, but that its size is unknown, and that until it is established the field should stop elaborating the model and go back to testing whether the basic phenomenon exists. They present the episode as a case study in how small-study effects can sustain an entire research programme, and in what tools are available to catch it. This vault cites it as the hinge point between the meta-analysis and the replication attempts that followed.
Carter and McCullough reanalysed the data from the large ego depletion meta-analysis using methods designed to detect and correct for small-study effects, the pattern that appears when small studies reporting large effects are published and small studies reporting nothing are not. The signals of bias were very strong. Once corrected, their estimate of the depletion effect was indistinguishable from zero. Their conclusion is appropriately careful: not that the effect is definitely absent, but that its size is unknown, and that until it is established the field should stop elaborating the model and go back to testing whether the basic phenomenon exists. They present the episode as a case study in how small-study effects can sustain an entire research programme, and in what tools are available to catch it. This vault cites it as the hinge point between the meta-analysis and the replication attempts that followed.
Written from the abstract, OpenAlex.
What our sources record
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Carter, E. C. & McCullough, M. E. (2014). “Publication bias and the limited strength model of self-control: Has the evidence for ego depletion been overestimated?” Frontiers in Psychology, 5:823.
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- Willpower Is Not a Fuel Tank, Why We Act
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The link below was matched against the publisher's record on title, first author and year, and all three agree.
The source
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00823
DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00823