— Self-control is a central function of the self and an important key to success in life. The exertion of self-control appears to depend on a limited resource.

— An influential line of research suggests that initial bouts of self-control increase the susceptibility to self-control failure (ego depletion effect). Despite seemingly abundant evidence, some researchers have suggested that evidence for ego depletion was the sole result of publication bias and p-hacking, with the true effect being indistinguishable from zero.

— Provides Baumeister's perspective on ego depletion and its status in the context of psychology's replication crisis. Reviews history, controversy, evidence.

— We find very little evidence that the depletion effect is a real phenomenon, at least when assessed with the methods most frequently used in the laboratory. Our results strongly challenge the idea that self-control functions as if it relies on a limited psychological or physical resource.

— Despite our admiration for this program of meta-research, we suggest that bias-corrected meta-analyses cannot yet resolve whether the overall ego depletion is different from zero or not.

— A Multi-Lab Pre-Registered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Paradigm

Meta-analysis of the studies revealed that the size of the ego-depletion effect was small with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) that encompassed zero (d = 0.04, 95% CI [−0.07, 0.15].