Progress-focused

Roy Baumeister's 2012 book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength argued two things that are intuitively appealing. The first is the primacy of willpower . This idea is that willpower is a very important strength which enables us to exercise self-control which is essential for achieving our goals. The second is about ego-depletion . This idea is that willpower is a limited resource. In other words, when we have used our willpower to concentrate and resist temptations this will leave us with less willpower to take on new challenges and resist new temptations. Both ideas are in trouble.

Last year I wrote that the existence of ego depletion is doubtful ( here ) and that I think the concept is based on a too simple way of thinking about psychology ( here - sorry it is in Dutch). Now it appears that the curtain definitely falls for the concept of ego depletion.

Previous research has already shown that the ego depletion model of willpower is too simple. New research suggests ego depletion may not exist at all.  A popular concept in modern psychology is ego depletion (see Baumeister & Tierney, 2012 ). Briefly put, the ego depletion model says that self-control or willpower depends on a limited amount of mental energy. When you try to concentrate or control yourself for a long time, according to Baumeister, you use this energy and you will slowly but surely run out of it. The more this resource gets depleted the harder it gets to keep controlling yourself. This ego depletion effect is supposed to be general. Each task which requires self-control depletes your resources and when this happens its gets harder to control yourself for whatever task or seduction. According to Baumeister, you then need to supplement your resources, for example by eating or sleeping.