Citation

Barber LK, Smit BW. J. Soc. Psychol. 2014; 154(5): 379-383.

Affiliation

Northern Illinois University.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00224545.2014.933161

PMID

25175988

Abstract

This study replicated ego-depletion predictions from the self-control literature in a computer simulation task that requires ongoing decision-making in relation to constantly changing environmental information: the Network Fire Chief (NFC). Ego-depletion led to decreased self-regulatory effort, but not performance, on the NFC task. These effects were also buffered by task enjoyment so that individuals who enjoyed the dynamic decision-making task did not experience ego-depletion effects. These findings confirm that past ego-depletion effects on decision-making are not limited to static or isolated decision-making tasks and can be extended to dynamic, naturalistic decision-making processes more common to naturalistic settings. Furthermore, the NFC simulation provides a methodological mechanism for independently measuring effort and performance when studying ego-depletion.

Language: en