A new research replication project, involving 24 labs and over 2100 participants, failed to reproduce findings from a previous study that suggested that self-control is a depletable resource. The findings are published as part of a Registered Replication Report in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Over the last twenty years, numerous studies have provided evidence supporting the idea that our capacity for self-control is finite – using self-control on one task reduces an individual’s ability to exert self-control on a subsequent task. But recent analyses have challenged the strength of this so-called ego depletion effect.
