Sweet delusion. Glucose drinks fail to counteract ego depletion
Lange and Eggert tested the glucose explanation of willpower, which held that self-control consumes blood sugar and that a sugary drink restores it, a claim that had reached the point where merely rinsing the mouth with glucose was said to work. Two experiments, one with seventy participants comparing a sugar drink against a non-caloric sweetener, the other with a hundred and fifteen participants varying the delay between a glucose mouth rinse and the subsequent task, found nothing. Neither tasting nor swallowing sugar affected performance on the second self-control task. The authors note that the original evidence was less compelling than its popularity implied, and that independent replication was overdue. This is the paper to cite whenever the advice to eat something sugary before a demanding decision appears, and it sits alongside the wider failure to replicate the resource model of self-control.
Lange and Eggert tested the glucose explanation of willpower, which held that self-control consumes blood sugar and that a sugary drink restores it, a claim that had reached the point where merely rinsing the mouth with glucose was said to work. Two experiments, one with seventy participants comparing a sugar drink against a non-caloric sweetener, the other with a hundred and fifteen participants varying the delay between a glucose mouth rinse and the subsequent task, found nothing. Neither tasting nor swallowing sugar affected performance on the second self-control task. The authors note that the original evidence was less compelling than its popularity implied, and that independent replication was overdue. This is the paper to cite whenever the advice to eat something sugary before a demanding decision appears, and it sits alongside the wider failure to replicate the resource model of self-control.
Written from the abstract, Europe PMC.
What our sources record
Reproduced as it was written when this source was checked, figures and all.
Lange, F. & Eggert, F. (2014). “Sweet delusion: Glucose drinks fail to counteract ego depletion.” Appetite, 75, 54-63.
Where we use it
- Willpower Is Not a Fuel Tank, Why We Act
Reliability of this reference
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/10.1016/j.appet.2013.12.020
DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2013.12.020