A Multilab Replication of the Ego Depletion Effect. Issue 1 (January 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Dang, Junhua; Barker, Paul; Baumert, Anna; Bentvelzen, Margriet; Berkman, Elliot; Buchholz, Nita; Buczny, Jacek; Chen, Zhansheng; De Cristofaro, Valeria; de Vries, Lianne; Dewitte, Siegfried; Giacomantonio, Mauro; Gong, Ran; Homan, Maaike; Imhoff, Roland; Ismail, Ismaharif; Jia, Lile; Kubiak, Thomas; Lange, Florian; Li, Dan-yang; Livingston, Jordan; Ludwig, Rita; Panno, Angelo; Pearman, Joshua; Rassi, Niklas; Schiöth, Helgi B.; Schmitt, Manfred; Sevincer, A. Timur; Shi, Jiaxin; Stamos, Angelos; Tan, Yia Chin; Wenzel, Mario; Zerhouni, Oulmann; Zhang, Li-wei; Zhang, Yi-jia; Zinkernagel, Axel;
• Is Part Of: Social psychological & personality science. Volume 12:Issue 1(2021)
• Page Start: 14
• Page End: 24
• Publication Date: 2021-01
• Subjects: ego depletion -- self-control -- multilab -- preregistration; Personality -- Periodicals; Social psychology -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; 155.2
• DOI: 10.1177/1948550619887702
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1948-5506

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.