Failure to Replicate Depletion of Self-Control
Xiaomeng Xu1*, Kathryn E. Demos2,3, Tricia M. Leahey2,3, Chantelle N. Hart4, Jennifer Trautvetter2,
Pamela Coward2, Kathryn R. Middleton2,3, Rena R. Wing2,3
1 Department of Psychology, Idaho State University, Pocatello, Idaho, United States of America, 2 The Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center, The Miriam Hospital,
Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America, 3 Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, Rhode
Island, United States of America, 4 Department of Public Health, Center for Obesity Research and Education, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
of America
Abstract
The limited resource or strength model of self-control posits that the use of self-regulatory resources leads to depletion and
poorer performance on subsequent self-control tasks. We conducted four studies (two with community samples, two with
young adult samples) utilizing a frequently used depletion procedure (crossing out letters protocol) and the two most
frequently used dependent measures of self-control (handgrip perseverance and modified Stroop). In each study,
participants completed a baseline self-control measure, a depletion or control task (randomized), and then the same
measure of self-control a second time. There was no evidence for significant depletion effects in any of these four studies.
The null results obtained in four attempts to replicate using strong methodological approaches may indicate that depletion
has more limited effects than implied by prior publications. We encourage further efforts to replicate depletion (particularly
among community samples) with full disclosure of positive and negative results.
Citation: Xu X, Demos KE, Leahey TM, Hart CN, Trautvetter J, et al. (2014) Failure to Replicate Depletion of Self-Control. PLoS ONE 9(10): e109950. doi:10.1371/
journal.pone.0109950
Editor: Hua Shu, Beijing Normal University, China
Received April 8, 2014; Accepted September 12, 2014; Published October 21, 2014
Copyright: ß 2014 Xu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. All relevant data are within the paper and its
Supporting Information files.
Funding: This research was supported by the National Cancer Institute (National Institutes of Health) grant 5U01 CA150387 awarded to RRW. The funders had no
role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
* Email: xuxiao@isu.edu
studies with community samples and then repeated the two studies
with young adult samples. We report here the results of these four
studies with the goal of encouraging further efforts to replicate
these paradigms with full disclosure of positive and negative
results.
Introduction
Self-control, the effortful regulation of the self to overcome
impulses and delay gratification, is an important capacity linked to
success and better outcomes in a variety of domains including
interpersonal relations, academics, and health [1]. One model of
self-control [2–3] posits that self-control is a finite resource akin to
muscle strength and is vulnerable to exhaustion after exertion.
Depletion (sometimes referred to as ego depletion) occurs when a
person’s self-control resources have been exhausted, and thus
performance on subsequent attempts at self-control is impaired.
This model has been tested in a number of studies and a metaanalysis found support for a significant effect of ego depletion on
hindering subsequent self-control task performance [4]. However,
the majority of studies utilizing the strength model of self-control
have been conducted with college-age students, which is
problematic as the depletion effect may be specific to young
adults, and may not generalize to other age groups [5]. Some have
also questioned the existence of the depletion effect, suggesting
that it is likely to be significantly overestimated due to publication
bias [6].
Recently, attention has focused on developing interventions to
strengthen self-control and buffer against depletion [7]. As part of
such efforts, a reliable paradigm is needed to indicate whether
interventions succeed in increasing self-control and decreasing the
negative effects of depletion. The goal of the current investigation
was to identify such a paradigm. We conducted two depletion
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Method
Overview of Procedures
All four studies used a repeated measure design in which selfcontrol was first assessed, followed by random assignment to a
depletion task or control task, and then the assessment of selfcontrol was repeated. The independent and dependent measures
used in these studies were selected based on a meta-analysis of egodepletion studies [4] and were chosen because they were the most
frequently used tasks with consistently large effect sizes. The
crossing out letters protocol (see detailed procedures below), was
selected for the manipulation (Depletion vs. Control) task, as it was
the most commonly used manipulation with a consistently large
effect size (d = 0.77 across 20 studies). Handgrip persistence
(d = 0.64 across 18 studies) and a modified Stroop task (d = 0.76
across 15 studies) were selected as the dependent measures for use
in separate studies. Both dependent measures were tested first with
community adults. The same protocols were then repeated with
young adults, since the majority of prior studies were done with
this age group [4] and there is some evidence that the depletion
effect may be specific to young adults [5]. With a repeated
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Depletion Replication Failure
measures design, an alpha of.05, and a 2-sided test of significance,
samples of N = 40 (20 per group) for each study provided 91%
power to detect large effects (d = 0.8) and 86% power to detect
medium-large effects (d = 0.7) based on Cohen’s standards [8].
These effects are consistent with effect sizes observed in prior
studies with the crossing out letters protocol [4].
As per Magen and Gross [10], the participants’ maximum grip
strength was first determined. Participants were seated with both
feet on the floor, and instructed to hold the hand dynamometer
(Lafayette Instruments Model 78010 Lafayette, Indiana) in their
dominant hand with their elbow bent at a 45 degree angle such
that the device was in their line of sight, and to squeeze the
dynamometer as hard as they could for 3 seconds; this was used as
participants’ maximum grip. After a short break, participants were
instructed to grip the dynamometer as they had before, squeeze it
at or above 70% of their maximum grip strength and hold it for as
long as possible. The instructions were read to each participant to
minimize variability and the 70% point was clearly indicated on
the dial so that participants were able to see the level at which they
needed to maintain their grip. Hand grip persistence was assessed
as time in seconds using a stop watch.
After completing the depletion/control task, all participants
were again asked to hold the hand dynamometer at 70% of their
maximum grip strength for as long as possible and persistence was
again assessed.
Participants
Community adults and young adults were recruited using a
large display board in a local hospital cafeteria or university dining
hall, respectively, and by word of mouth. To be eligible for the
study, community samples were required to be over the age of 18,
with no upper age limit, and young adults to be aged 18–25. The
only other eligibility criterion was to have fasted for two hours.
This criterion was used to help control for glucose levels, as glucose
may interfere with the depletion effect [9]. The research was
approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of The Miriam
Hospital and in line with guidelines set by the IRB and The
Declaration of Helsinki, all participants provided informed written
consent. Participants received a $25 honorarium at the end of the
study.
Fifty two community adults (18 men and 34 women), with a
mean (6 SD) age of 41.6615.3 years were recruited for the
handgrip protocol and 38 adults (11 men and 27 women) with a
mean (6 SD) age of 43.6612.9 years for the modified Stroop
protocol. There were no significant differences in age or ethnicity
between the community participants who were randomly assigned
to the depletion vs control condition in either protocol, all ps..05.
Fifty young adults (32 men and 18 women), with a mean (6SD)
age of 19.761.3 years were recruited for the handgrip protocol
and 46 young adults (14 men and 32 women) with a mean (6 SD)
age of 21.262.8 years for the modified Stroop protocol. Those
who were randomly assigned to the depletion condition did not
significantly differ from those in the control condition on age or
ethnicity, all ps..05.
Modified Stroop
Versions of the modified Stroop computer task have been used
extensively in previous literature, and the version used herein was
based on the protocol reported in prior depletion studies [9,12–
13]. The task was conducted using Eprime Stimulus Presentation
Software running on a laptop computer. Participants viewed color
words (i.e., ‘red’, ‘yellow’, ‘green’, ‘blue’) that appeared one at a
time in an incongruent font color (e.g., ‘red’ may be displayed in
blue font) and the participant responded by pressing the key
corresponding to the font color rather than the word itself. Each
participant was given a brief practice round to orient them to the
modified Stroop task, after which they completed 20 self-paced
trials.
Upon completion of either the control or depletion protocol, all
participants completed a second set of the modified Stroop task
consisting of 80 trials, as has been done in prior studies [9,13]. The
primary outcome measure was the change in reaction time on the
correct trials of the Stroop task from pre-to-post; the secondary
outcome was pre-to-post change in the number of correct trials.
Manipulation task (Depletion versus Control)
The depletion task as described by Baumeister et al. [2] has
been used in many other studies [4]. Following the procedures
reported by Baumeister et al [2], all participants were first given an
easy task to complete, namely to cross out all instances of the letter
‘‘e’’ on printed pages of text for a period of two minutes. This task
was used to establish a behavioral pattern. Subsequently, those
who were randomized to the control group were instructed to
continue to cross out every instance of the letter ‘‘e’’ on additional
pages; those randomized to the depletion condition were given
pages of text where the print was very light and were instructed to
cross out all ‘‘e’s’’ that were not adjacent to or one letter away
from another vowel; this task required the use of self-control to
override a previously learned behavioral pattern. Both depletion
and control groups spent a total of 8 minutes on their task.
Statistical Analyses
For both community and young adult samples, repeated
measure analyses of variance were conducted, comparing the
effects of the depletion and control conditions on self-control
performance from pre-test to post-test. The primary outcome
measure was the Condition X Time interaction. Results are
presented as partial eta squares with the magnitudes of effect sizes
corresponding to Small = .01, Medium = .06, and Large = .14
[8]. To improve interpretation and comparison to previous
studies, we further calculated mean differences, Cohen’s d, and
confidence intervals around the mean differences between the
depletion and control groups, using pre-to-post change scores.
Handgrip Persistence
Handgrip persistence was determined using a protocol described by Magen and Gross [10] and recommended by an expert
in the field (R. Baumeister, personal communication, 2013). This
protocol uses a hand dynamometer as the measuring device and
examines persistence at 70% of the individuals’ own maximum
grip strength. This approach was selected over earlier protocols
[11], that utilized a spring-based hand grip device (which could
not be calibrated to the individual) and had participants squeeze it
for as long as they could (measured based on how long it took for
an object that was inserted between the springs to fall), without
taking into account participants’ maximum strength level.
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Results
As described above, the two protocols were first tested in
community samples and then repeated using college-aged young
adult samples. However, for ease of presentation, we present the
results for the handgrip perseverance protocol in the two different
samples and then present the findings for the Stroop protocol.
Handgrip Persistence (see Figure 1)
Within the community adults, hand grip persistence decreased
from pre- to post-testing (Mean 6 SE change of 24.9662.08 s,
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Figure 1. Mean (± SE) number of seconds that the dynamometer was held at pre-test and post-test in community adults and young
adults by condition. (Depletion = solid line, Control = dashed line).
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0109950.g001
F(1,50) = 5.28, p = .026, 2partial = . 096), but there was no
evidence that these changes differed between the DEPLETION
and CONTROL conditions [mean 6 SE change of 22.5262.63
and 27.0463.12 seconds, respectively, F(1,50) = 1.178, p = .283,
2
partial = .023, mean difference = 24.5264.16, d = 2.302, 95%
CI of mean difference: 212.88, 3.84].
Likewise, there was a trend toward pre-to-post decreases in handgrip strength in the young adults (22.7861.38 s, F(1, 47) = 3.96,
p = .052, 2partial = .078), but changes in hand grip persistence in this
sample did not differ between the DEPLETION and CONTROL
conditions [mean 6 SE change in DEPLETION = 22.7762.10 s,
and in CONTROL = 22.7961.77 s, F(1,47) = 0.001, p = .993,
2
partial,.001, mean difference = 20.0262.79, d = 2.002, 95% CI
of mean difference: 25.64, 5.59]. Combining the data from both
community adults and young adults again indicated no difference
between the depletion and control group [mean 6 SE change in
persistence DEPLETION = 22.6561.65 s, CONTROL = 25.126
1.90 s, F(1,99) = .963, p = .329, 2partial = .010, mean difference
= 22.4762.52, d = 2.195, 95% CI of mean difference: 27.48, 2.53].
However, there were no significant differences in changes in reaction
time (RT) for the DEPLETION versus the CONTROL group [mean
6 SE change in RT DEPLETION = 2130.12628.21 ms, mean 6
SE change in RT CONTROL = 2161.34656.75 ms, F(1,36) = .210,
p = .649, 2partial = .006; mean difference = 231.22668.11 ms,
d = 2.149, 95% CI of mean difference: 2169.35, 106.91].
Likewise, for young adults, reaction time on the Stroop task
improved (i.e. decreased) from pre- to post-treatment [mean 6 SE
change = 273.35613.57 F(1,44) = 28.51, p,.001, 2partial = .393].
However, there were no significant differences in changes in RT for
the DEPLETION versus the CONTROL group [mean change
6 SE in RT DEPLETION = 282.56620.22 ms, mean change in
RT CONTROL = 263.30618.08 ms; F(1,44) = .497, p = .485,
2
partial = .011; mean difference = 19.25627.32 ms, d = .208, 95%
CI of mean difference: 235.80, 74.31]. Further, there were no
difference in changes in RT between the DEPLETION and
CONTROL groups when the data from the community adults and
young adults were combined, [mean change in RT DEPLETION = 2102.286107.79 ms, mean change in RT CONTROL = 2111.186107.79 ms, F(1,82) = .066, p = .798,
2
partial = .001; mean difference = 28.90634.69 ms, d =
2.056, 95% CI of mean difference: 277.92, 60.11]. Since 80
Stroop trials were conducted following the manipulation task,
analyses were also done examining changes in each block of 20
Modified Stroop (see Figure 2)
Within the community adults, reaction time on the Stroop task
improved (i.e. decreased) from pre- to post-treatment [mean 6 SE
change = 2147.38633.50, F(1,36) = 18.31, p,.001, 2partial = .337].
Figure 2. Mean (± SE) response time (in milliseconds) for Stroop responses at pre-test and post-test in community adults and
young adults, by condition. (Depletion = solid line, Control = dashed line).
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0109950.g002
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participants was affecting the outcome, since there is some
evidence that the depletion effect may be specific to younger
adults [5]. Thus we repeated these two studies using college age
samples; again, we found no evidence that the depletion task
affected subsequent self-control.
We considered several possible explanations for these null
results. One possibility is that we did not use the appropriate tasks.
However, we selected crossing out letters as the depletion task
because it is the most frequently used task (used in 20 studies), with
the most consistently large effect sizes: an averaged corrected
standardized difference effect size of d = 0.77 [4]. In addition, we
felt that with crossing out letters, both the depletion and the
control task could be administered consistently across subjects,
whereas other depleting tasks, such as affect regulation while
watching a video might vary across subjects who differed in their
reaction to the specific video. We also selected the two most
frequently used dependent tasks—handgrip and modified Stroop
and administered these using carefully controlled protocols,
including, as noted above, an updated protocol for handgrip
persistence.
Another possible explanation for our null results is that we had
insufficient power to detect a depletion effect. However, the
sample size used in our studies is comparable to that used in many
prior studies [4] and the use of a repeated measures design
increases power within this sample size. Post-hoc analyses suggest
that we had sufficient power to reject the null hypothesis.
Specifically, we conducted a sensitivity analysis to detect the
required effect size for each paradigm at 80% power (testing the
within-between interaction), given the sample size and correlation
between measures demonstrated in the current study. For the
handgrip test, given our combined sample size of 102 and a
correlation between measures of.74, the required effect size was
d = .22. For the Stroop test, given our combined sample of 83 and
a correlation between measures of.80, the required effect size was
d = .20. Thus, the current study was adequately powered to detect
the previously-reported effect sizes for handgrip and Stroop
(d = .63 and d = .076, respectively, from a recent meta-analysis)
[4].
The approach we used, in which pre- and post-measures were
obtained for subjects who were randomly assigned to a depletion
or control condition, is a stronger design than used in many of the
prior studies in this area. Multiple studies have utilized nonexperimental designs to investigate trait measures of self-control on
task performance [11;15–20]. In some cases, studies involve pre
and post assessments completed only on subjects exposed to
depletion (i.e. there was no control group that was not depleted)
trials. We observed no significant differences between the
DEPLETION and CONTROL condition during any of the
blocks of trials, all ps..05. Similarly, no differences in changes
in accuracy were observed between the DEPLETION and
CONTROL group in either community adults or young adults,
p = .330, 2partial = .026, and p = .915, 2partial,.001, respectively.
For ease of comparison, we have presented the Cohens d (plus
95% CI around d) for each analysis of the depletion paradigm in
Figure 3.
Discussion
Across four studies, two with community samples and two with
young adult samples, we found no evidence for the depletion
effect, despite employing the depletion protocol and dependent
measures of self-control that have shown consistently large effect
sizes and have been the most frequently used in the literature.
Interestingly, plotting the mean effect sizes for the four studies and
two combined samples (see Figure 3), showed that the direction of
the (non-significant) effects are actually the opposite of what would
be expected from the literature for every analysis except one
(Stroop young adults sample).
The strength model of self-control has generated a great deal of
interest. In this model, self-control is viewed as a limited resource;
this resource is depleted by efforts to inhibit a thought, emotion, or
behavior. A number of studies, done primarily with college age
students, have shown that exerting self-control in one situation
results in poorer self-control on a variety of subsequent tasks [4].
Based on the conception of self-control as a limited resource, the
field has begun to investigate ways in which the self-control
resource may be enhanced. Practicing small acts of self-control are
suggested to increase the self-control reserve, and hence a number
of studies are now examining the long-term effects of practicing
self-control on future success at changing behaviors, such as
smoking [7] and weight loss [14]. Given the potential importance
of this model for understanding and treating a variety of risky
behaviors (e.g., smoking, unhealthy eating), it is critical that a
reliable measure of the effects of depletion on self-control be
identified.
In this series of four studies, using the most commonly used
depletion paradigm and measures of self-control with the largest
effect sizes, we found no evidence that completion of a depleting
task led to decreases in self-control. Our first two studies were done
with community adults. When no effect of depletion was seen in
these studies, we considered the possibility that the age of the
Figure 3. Mean effect sizes (Cohen’s d) for each of the studies and combined samples, along with 95% confidence intervals.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0109950.g003
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[21]. Without a control group, the decreases in handgrip
persistence we observed over time might be taken, incorrectly,
as evidence of a depletion effect. In other studies, assessments are
conducted only after depletion or control, without a pre-depletion
assessment of the dependent measure [22–26]. Again, this could
lead to erroneous interpretation of results.
While other possible explanations for our null results can be
advanced, we suggest that our data may indicate that depletion has
more limited effects on self-control than implied by the publications in this field. That is, as Carter & McCullough [6,27] have
suggested, the depletion effect may be overestimated in the
literature due in part to publication bias. Currently there are few
papers in the literature that presents null depletion findings [28,29]
We would like to encourage publication of other studies using
depletion paradigms—regardless of whether the results were
positive, negative, or null. We recognize and support the goal of
replication of results in psychological experiments, and feel that
this is an area in need of such endeavors.
Supporting Information
Data S1
De-identified data handgrip studies.
(XLSX)
Data S2
De-identified data for Stroop studies.
(XLSX)
Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: XX KED TML CH JT PC
KRM RRW. Performed the experiments: XX JT PC. Analyzed the data:
KED KRM RRW. Wrote the paper: XX KED TML CH JT PC KRM
RRW.
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