Abstract
Ego depletion happens if exerting self-control reduces a person’s capacity to subsequently control themselves. Previous research has suggested that ego depletion not only interferes with subsequent self-control but also with working memory. However, recent meta-analytical evidence casts doubt onto this. The present study tackles the question if ego depletion does interfere with working memory performance. We induced ego depletion in two ways: using an e-crossing task and using a Stroop task. We then measured working memory performance using the letter-number sequencing task. There was no evidence of ego depletion interfering with working memory performance. Several aspects of our study render this null finding highly robust. We had a large and heterogeneous sample of N = 1,385, which provided sufficient power. We deployed established depletion tasks from two task families (e-crossing task and Stroop), thus making it less likely that the null finding is due to a specific depletion paradigm. We derived several performance scores from the working memory task and ran different analyses to maximize the chances of finding an effect. Lastly, we controlled for two potential moderators, the implicit theories about willpower and dispositional self-control capacity, to ensure that a possible effect on working memory is not obscured by an interaction effect. In sum, this experiment strengthens the position that ego depletion works but does not affect working memory performance.
Highlights
Ego depletion describes a phenomenon in which exerting self-control reduces a person’s capacity to subsequently control themselves (Baumeister et al, 1998)
We examined the three tasks used in our experiment: the e-crossing task, the Stroop task, and the letter-number sequencing task
In the e-crossing rule-switch condition, the participants clicked on Mdn = 38 (IQR = 24) Es in the first phase, of which Mdn = 30 (IQR = 19) were correct
Summary
Ego depletion describes a phenomenon in which exerting self-control reduces a person’s capacity to subsequently control themselves (Baumeister et al, 1998). This concept has inspired a large body of work (Hagger et al, 2010). New meta-analytic evidence (Carter et al, 2015) and replication efforts (Hagger et al, 2016) have cast doubt on whether the ego depletion effect is as stable and universal as previously assumed. While the most recent meta-analysis by Dang (2017) amends the criticism of Carter et al (2015), the question remains of why the ego depletion effect varies so much across studies
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