2016/07/12 by Miguel A. Vadillo, Natalie Gold, Magda Osman · 2 citations
Psychology · Decision Sciences · #Behavioral Health and Interventions #Mental Health Research Topics #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
paper · doi:10.1177/0956797616654911
openalex publication_date 2016/07/12 · openalex created_date 2016/07/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
The idea behind ego depletion is that willpower draws on a limited mental resource, so that engaging in an act of self-control impairs self-control in subsequent tasks. To present ego depletion as more than a convenient metaphor, some researchers have proposed that glucose is the limited resource that becomes depleted with self-control. However, there have been theoretical challenges to the proposed glucose mechanism, and the experiments that have tested it have found mixed results. We used a new meta-analytic tool, p-curve analysis, to examine the reliability of the evidence from these experiments. We found that the effect sizes reported in this literature are possibly influenced by publication or reporting bias and that, even within studies yielding significant results, the evidential value of this research is weak. In light of these results, and pending further evidence, researchers and policymakers should refrain from drawing any conclusions about the role of glucose in self-control.