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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title Habituation does not rescue depletion: Two tests of the ego-depletion effect
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Carlos Alos-Ferrer
  • Alexander Ritschel
  • Jaume García-Segarra
  • Anja Achtziger
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Journal of Economic Psychology
Publisher Elsevier
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 0167-4870
Volume 75
Page Range 102122
Date 2019
Abstract Text The recent literature on ego depletion and self-control is plagued with failed replications. It has been argued that publication bias might have inflated estimated effect sizes. Doubts go so far that the very existence of the ego-depletion effect has been questioned. We conducted two high-power tests of the ego-depletion effect, with samples in two different countries, including a habituation phase in the depleting task (“e-crossing task”). This addresses recent critiques on failed registered replications, which argued that habituation was essential to obtain depletion effects. We examined the effect on error rates, response times, interference scores for error rates and response times, and response-time variability in a subsequent Stroop task. There were no effects in general, except a significant difference in response-time variability, only in one of the samples, and in the opposite direction as predicted by the ego-depletion effect.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1016/j.joep.2018.11.001
Other Identification Number merlin-id:17096
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Keywords Applied psychology, economics and econometrics, sociology and political science, ego depletion, self-control