ArticlePsychological research2021
Task duration and task order do not matter: no effect on self-control performance.
Article in Psychological research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Effects of Prior Cognitive Exertion on Physical Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2020Pooled it
- Trial
- Current Practices for Mental Fatigue Quantification and Induction in Movement Science: Introducing the SPeCIFY Guidelines.Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2025Review
- Article
- The Effect of Social Appearance Anxiety on the Online Impulse Purchases of Fashionable Outfits Among Female College Students During Pandemic Periods: The Mediating Role of Self-Control and the Moderating Role of Subjective Socioeconomic Status.Psychology research and behavior management · 2023Article
- Tracking Self-Control - Task Performance and Pupil Size in a Go/No-Go Inhibition Task.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- A Primer on the Role of Boredom in Self-Controlled Sports and Exercise Behavior.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- Testing the Effects of a Preceding Self-Control Task on Decision-Making in Soccer Refereeing.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2021Article
- Again, No Evidence for or Against the Existence of Ego Depletion: Opinion on "A Multi-Site Preregistered Paradigmatic Test of the Ego Depletion Effect".Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2021Article
- Elites Do Not Deplete - No Effect of Prior Mental Exertion on Subsequent Shooting Performance in Elite Shooters.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- The Effect of Preceding Self-Control on Green Consumption Behavior: The Moderating Role of Moral Elevation.Psychology research and behavior management · 2021Article
- Bored Into Depletion? Toward a Tentative Integration of Perceived Self-Control Exertion and Boredom as Guiding Signals for Goal-Directed Behavior.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2020Article
- On Your Mark, Get Set, Self-Control, Go: A Differentiated View on the Cortical Hemodynamics of Self-Control during Sprint Start.Brain sciences · 2020Article
- High Boredom Proneness and Low Trait Self-Control Impair Adherence to Social Distancing Guidelines during the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Article
- Manipulation of the Duration of the Initial Self-Control Task Within the Sequential-Task Paradigm: Effect on Exercise Performance.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020Article
- Trait Self-Control Outperforms Trait Fatigue in Predicting MS Patients' Cortical and Perceptual Responses to an Exhaustive Task.Neural plasticity · 2019Article
- Trait Self-Control Discriminates Between Youth Football Players Selected and Not Selected for the German Talent Program: A Bayesian Analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
- Is Learning With Elaborative Interrogation Less Desirable When Learners Are Depleted?Frontiers in psychology · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The strength model of self-control proposes that all acts of self-control are energized by one global limited resource that becomes temporarily depleted by a primary self-control task, leading to impaired self-control performance in secondary self-control tasks. However, failed replications have cast doubt on the existence of this so-called ego depletion effect. Here, we investigated between-task (i.e., variation in self-control tasks) and within-task variation (i.e., task duration) as possible explanations for the conflicting literature on ego depletion effects. In a high-powered experiment (N = 709 participants), we used two established self-control tasks (Stroop task, transcription task) to test how variations in the duration of primary and secondary self-control tasks (2, 4, 8, or 16 min per task) affect the occurrence of an ego depletion effect (i.e., impaired performance in the secondary task). In line with the ego depletion hypothesis, subjects perceived longer lasting secondary tasks as more self-control demanding. Contrary to the ego depletion hypothesis, however, performance did neither suffer from prior self-control exertion, nor as a function of task duration. If anything, performance tended to improve when the primary self-control task lasted longer. These effects did not differ between the two self-control tasks, suggesting that the observed null findings were independent of task type.
Indexed as
Identifiers
31321518What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.