Revisiting Ego Depletion: Moderators and Measurement. Issue 1 (2nd January 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Singh, Ranjit K.; Göritz, Anja S.
• Is Part Of: Basic and applied social psychology. Volume 41:Issue 1(2019)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 19
• Publication Date: 2019-01-02
• Subjects: Social psychology -- Periodicals; 302.05
• DOI: 10.1080/01973533.2018.1530671
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0197-3533

Abstract

Abstract: We developed and validated two web-based tasks to induce and measure ego depletion in two online experiments ( N = 122 and N = 788). Ego depletion describes the phenomenon that exerting self-control temporarily reduces people's capacity to subsequently control themselves. To induce ego depletion, we adapted the e-crossing task, and to measure ego depletion, we adapted the color Stroop task. We successfully induced ego depletion. Participants' implicit theories about willpower as well as their mood moderated ego depletion. We also discuss several methodological issues and compare different approaches of measuring ego depletion using aggregated reaction times.