Two preregistered experiments with over 1000 participants in total found evidence of an ego depletion effect on attention control. Participants who exercised self-control on a writing task went on to make more errors on Stroop tasks (Experiment 1) and the Attention Network Test (Experiment 2) compared to participants who did not exercise self-control on the initial writing task. The depletion effect on response times was non-significant. A mini meta-analysis of the two experiments found a small (d = 0.20) but significant increase in error rates in the controlled writing condition, thereby providing evidence of poorer attention control under ego depletion.These results, which emerged from preregistered experiments in large samples of participants, represent some of the most rigorous evidence yet of the ego depletion effect.

Emotional events tend to be remembered better than neutral events, but emotional states and stimuli may also interfere with cognitive processes that underlie memory performance. The current study investigated the effects of emotional content on working memory capacity (WMC), which involves both short term storage and executive attention control. We tested competing hypotheses in a preregistered experiment (N = 297). The emotional enhancement hypothesis predicts that emotional stimuli attract attention and additional processing resources relative to neutral stimuli, thereby making it easier to encode and store emotional information in WMC. The emotional impairment hypothesis, by contrast, predicts that emotional stimuli interfere with attention control and the active maintenance of information in working memory. Participants completed a common measure of WMC (the operation span task; Turner, M. L., & Engle, R. W. [1989]. Is working memory capacity task dependent? Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 127-154) that included either emotional or neutral words. Results revealed that WMC was reduced for emotional words relative to neutral words, consistent with the emotional impairment hypothesis.

The current study examined the aftereffects of mental effort on the processing of picture stimuli using neural measures. Ninety-seven healthy young adults were randomly assigned to exercise more versus less mental effort on a writing task. Then participants viewed positive, negative, and neutral affective images while P1, N1, P2, N2, P3, and late positive potential (LPP) magnitudes to the images were assessed. We found that performing the more (versus less) effortful writing task caused more negative N2 amplitudes to all images. In addition, and consistent with past research, emotional (versus neutral) images elicited more positive amplitudes on the N2, P3, and LPP components. Thus, prior mental effort appeared to reduce early attentional engagement with visual stimuli but did not diminish later attention modulation by emotional content. These findings suggest novel implications for understanding the behavioral aftereffects of mental effort and self-control.

Trait self-control correlates with desirable outcomes including physical and psychological wellbeing and is thought to facilitate the formation of effective habits. Visceral states, including internal drives that motivate specific behaviors, have been found to undermine self-control. The current study tested the hypothesis that individuals higher in trait self-control experience less intense and a lower likelihood of visceral states and explored possible mediators. We found that trait self-control negatively correlates with responses to one-shot measures of hunger, fatigue, experiencing stress, and experiencing the common cold. Reports of recent sleeping and eating behavior mediated some of these relationships, consistent with the idea that healthful behaviors help individuals higher in trait self-control minimize visceral states. This research supports emerging perspectives on trait self-control's contributions to positive outcomes.

Adopting expansive (vs. contractive) body postures may influence psychological states associated with power. The current experiment sought to replicate and extend research on the power pose effect by adding another manipulation that embodies power—eye gaze. Participants ( N = 305) adopted expansive (high power) or contractive (low power) poses while gazing ahead (i.e., dominantly) or down at the ground (i.e., submissively). Afterward, participants played a hypothetical ultimatum game, made a gambling decision, and reported how powerful and in charge they felt. Neither body posture nor eye gaze influenced the gambling decision, and contrary to the predictions, adopting an expansive pose reduced feelings of power. We also found that holding a direct gaze increased the probability of rejecting a low offer on the ultimatum game. We consider why power posing did not have the predicted effects.