Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: A meta-analysis
Hagger and colleagues meta-analysed eighty-three studies of ego depletion and reported a medium-sized effect, which for several years was the evidence everyone cited. The review also reported effects on effort, perceived difficulty, negative mood, subjective fatigue and blood glucose, and found the basic result largely unmoved by which tasks were used, which laboratory ran them or how they were presented. Some things did change its size, including how long the first task lasted, the gap between tasks and the complexity of the second. It found that incentives, practice at self-control tasks and glucose supplementation all improved performance in depleted participants, and that expecting to need self-control again later made the effect worse. The authors themselves note that motivation and fatigue work as alternative explanations, which requires integrating the model with other theories. This page exists mainly so a reader can see what the evidence looked like before publication bias was assessed and the replications were run.
Hagger and colleagues meta-analysed eighty-three studies of ego depletion and reported a medium-sized effect, which for several years was the evidence everyone cited. The review also reported effects on effort, perceived difficulty, negative mood, subjective fatigue and blood glucose, and found the basic result largely unmoved by which tasks were used, which laboratory ran them or how they were presented. Some things did change its size, including how long the first task lasted, the gap between tasks and the complexity of the second. It found that incentives, practice at self-control tasks and glucose supplementation all improved performance in depleted participants, and that expecting to need self-control again later made the effect worse. The authors themselves note that motivation and fatigue work as alternative explanations, which requires integrating the model with other theories. This page exists mainly so a reader can see what the evidence looked like before publication bias was assessed and the replications were run.
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Hagger, M. S., Wood, C., Stiff, C. & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2010). “Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: A meta-analysis.” Psychological Bulletin, 136(4), 495-525. d = 0.62.
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https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019486
DOI: 10.1037/a0019486