Skip to main content
×
×
Home

Is ego depletion too incredible? Evidence for the overestimation of the depletion effect

  • Evan C. Carter (a1) and Michael E. McCullough (a1)
Abstract

The depletion effect, a decreased capacity for self-control following previous acts of self-control, is thought to result from a lack of necessary psychological/physical resources (i.e., “ego depletion”). Kurzban et al. present an alternative explanation for depletion; but based on statistical techniques that evaluate and adjust for publication bias, we question whether depletion is a real phenomenon in need of explanation.

Copyright
References
Hide All
Baumeister, R. F., Bratslavsky, E., Muraven, M. & Tice, D. M. (1998) Ego depletion: Is the active self a limited resource? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74(5):1252–65. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.5.1252.
Carter, E. C. & McCullough, M. E. (submitted) Publication bias and the limited strength model of self-control: Has the evidence for ego depletion been overestimated?
Egger, M., Davey Smith, G., Scheider, M. & Minder, C. (1997) Bias in meta-analysis detected by a simple, graphical test. British Medical Journal 316:629–34.
Hagger, M. S., Wood, C., Stiff, C. & Chatzisarantis, N. L. D. (2010a) Ego depletion and the strength model of self-control: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 136(4):495525. doi:10.1037/a0019486.
Ioannidis, J. P. A. & Trikalinos, T. A. (2007) An exploratory test for an excess of significant findings. Clinical Trials 4:245–53.
Moreno, S. G., Sutton, A. J., Ades, A. E., Stanley, T. D., Abrams, K. R., Peters, J. L. & Cooper, N. J. (2009) Assessment of regression-based methods to adjust for publication bias through a comprehensive simulation study. BMC Medical Research Methodology 9:117.
Moreno, S. G., Sutton, A. J., Thompson, J. R., Ades, A. E., Abrams, K. R. & Cooper, N. J. (2011) A generalized weighting regression-derived meta-analysis estimator robust to small-study effects and heterogeneity. Statistics in Medicine 31:1407–17.
Rosenberg, M. S. (2005) The file-drawer problem revisited: A general weighted method for calculating fail-safe numbers in meta-analysis. Evolution 59:464–68.
Schimmack, U. (2012) The ironic effect of significant results on the credibility of multiple-study articles. Psychological Methods 17(4):551–66. doi: 10.1037/a0029487.
Stanley, T. D. (2008) Meta-regression methods for detecting and estimating empirical effects in the presence of publication selection. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 70:103–27.
Sutton, A. J. (2009) Publication bias. In: The handbook of research synthesis and meta-analysis, ed. Cooper, H., Hedges, L. & Valentine, J., pp. 435–52. Russell Sage Foundation.
Recommend this journal

Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this journal to your organisation's collection.

Behavioral and Brain Sciences
  • ISSN: 0140-525X
  • EISSN: 1469-1825
  • URL: /core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences
Please enter your name
Please enter a valid email address
Who would you like to send this to? *
×

Metrics

Altmetric attention score

Full text views

Total number of HTML views: 95
Total number of PDF views: 430 *
Loading metrics...

Abstract views

Total abstract views: 1175 *
Loading metrics...

* Views captured on Cambridge Core between September 2016 - 5th May 2018. This data will be updated every 24 hours.