I don’t know what to think about Ego Depletion. When I first read about it, it felt quite intuitive and the research on it was robust. It came up everywhere I read. Then the whole replication crisis thing happened and serious doubts were cast on it. I updated towards a weaker effect.
I haven’t given it much thought since, until I was recently reminded of the study about mental fatigue on parole board judges and how chances of granting parole were greatest at the beginning of the work day and right after a food break(replenish mental resources).
If Ego Depletion is weak at best then what is going on with the parole study? My current epistemic status is that the effect is real and not debunked; but the effect may not be as universal (good for predicting parole and not so good for contrived cognitive experiments).
That’s a great observation! I heard about the judges, then about ego depletion, then about ego depletion not being replicated, but I wouldn’t make the connection myself.
My guess (I don’t feel much certainty about this) would be that ego depletion is about frustration, and that the same task can feel differently frustrating for different people. Maybe some participants in the experiment didn’t mind doing some tasks, which is why their “ego” didn’t get “depleted”. But a daily job is different than an experiment.
I don’t know what to think about Ego Depletion. When I first read about it, it felt quite intuitive and the research on it was robust. It came up everywhere I read. Then the whole replication crisis thing happened and serious doubts were cast on it. I updated towards a weaker effect.
I haven’t given it much thought since, until I was recently reminded of the study about mental fatigue on parole board judges and how chances of granting parole were greatest at the beginning of the work day and right after a food break(replenish mental resources).
If Ego Depletion is weak at best then what is going on with the parole study? My current epistemic status is that the effect is real and not debunked; but the effect may not be as universal (good for predicting parole and not so good for contrived cognitive experiments).
The effect size on the study of judges is too big to believe. Compared to that, removing the theoretical basis is a negligible problem.
That’s a great observation! I heard about the judges, then about ego depletion, then about ego depletion not being replicated, but I wouldn’t make the connection myself.
My guess (I don’t feel much certainty about this) would be that ego depletion is about frustration, and that the same task can feel differently frustrating for different people. Maybe some participants in the experiment didn’t mind doing some tasks, which is why their “ego” didn’t get “depleted”. But a daily job is different than an experiment.