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. 2021 Jan 1;12(1):14-24.
doi: 10.1177/1948550619887702. Epub 2020 Apr 3.

A Multilab Replication of the Ego Depletion Effect

Junhua Dang  1 , Paul Barker  2 , Anna Baumert  3   4 , Margriet Bentvelzen  5 , Elliot Berkman  6 , Nita Buchholz  7 , Jacek Buczny  8 , Zhansheng Chen  9 , Valeria De Cristofaro  10 , Lianne de Vries  8 , Siegfried Dewitte  11 , Mauro Giacomantonio  10 , Ran Gong  12 , Maaike Homan  13 , Roland Imhoff  14 , Ismaharif Ismail  15 , Lile Jia  15 , Thomas Kubiak  16 , Florian Lange  11 , Dan-Yang Li  12 , Jordan Livingston  6 , Rita Ludwig  6 , Angelo Panno  10 , Joshua Pearman  6 , Niklas Rassi  17 , Helgi B Schiöth  1 , Manfred Schmitt  7 , A Timur Sevincer  17 , Jiaxin Shi  9 , Angelos Stamos  11 , Yia-Chin Tan  15 , Mario Wenzel  16 , Oulmann Zerhouni  18 , Li-Wei Zhang  12 , Yi-Jia Zhang  12 , Axel Zinkernagel  7
Affiliations

A Multilab Replication of the Ego Depletion Effect

Junhua Dang et al. Soc Psychol Personal Sci. .

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.

Keywords: ego depletion; multilab; preregistration; self-control.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Forest plot for the error rate.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Funnel plot for the error rate.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Forest plot for reaction time.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Funnel plot for reaction time.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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