A Multilab Replication of the Ego Depletion Effect

Junhua Dang*, Paul Barker, Anna Baumert, Margriet Bentvelzen, Elliot Berkman, Nita Buchholz, Jacek Buczny, Zhansheng Chen, Valeria De Cristofaro, Lianne de Vries, Siegfried Dewitte, Mauro Giacomantonio, Ran Gong, Maaike Homan, Roland Imhoff, Ismaharif Ismail, Lile Jia, Thomas Kubiak, Florian Lange, Dan Yang LiJordan Livingston, Rita Ludwig, Angelo Panno, Joshua Pearman, Niklas Rassi, Helgi B. Schiöth, Manfred Schmitt, A. Timur Sevincer, Jiaxin Shi, Angelos Stamos, Yia Chin Tan, Mario Wenzel, Oulmann Zerhouni, Li Wei Zhang, Yi Jia Zhang, Axel Zinkernagel

*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

There is an active debate regarding whether the ego depletion effect is real. A recent preregistered experiment with the Stroop task as the depleting task and the antisaccade task as the outcome task found a medium-level effect size. In the current research, we conducted a preregistered multilab replication of that experiment. Data from 12 labs across the globe (N = 1,775) revealed a small and significant ego depletion effect, d = 0.10. After excluding participants who might have responded randomly during the outcome task, the effect size increased to d = 0.16. By adding an informative, unbiased data point to the literature, our findings contribute to clarifying the existence, size, and generality of ego depletion.

Original languageEnglish
JournalSocial Psychological and Personality Science
Volume12
Issue number1
Pages (from-to)14-24
Number of pages11
ISSN1948-5506
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Ego depletion
  • Self-control
  • Multilab
  • Preregistration

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