Depletion manipulations decrease openness to dissent via increased anger

Abstract

We investigated a potential outcome of ego depletion manipulations and an important factor behind cooperative failure: a lack of openness to others’ dissenting opinions. Across five studies in a variety of task settings, we examined the effect of depletion manipulations on openness to dissent and investigated two negative emotions as potential mediators of this process: fatigue and anger. The results demonstrated a negative effect of depletion manipulations on openness to dissent through increased anger rather than fatigue (Studies 1–5). In Studies 3 and 4, we also eliminated perceived trust towards a task counterpart as a significant mediator of the relationship between depletion manipulations and openness to dissent. These findings help clarify the nature of ego depletion manipulations and shed light on why individuals may fail to consider others’ dissenting opinions and, thus, fall short of achieving cooperation.

A Multilab Replication of the Ego Depletion Effect

“…On the other hand, if stronger manipulations were implemented, the answer should be more likely to be no and the effect size should be increased as the strength of the manipulation increases. Consistently with this proposition, recent evidence showed that the depletion intensity is positively correlated with subsequent fatigue perception (Tsai & Li, 2019). When the manipulation lasted for 1 hr or more, the effect size increased from medium to large (Radel, Gruet, & Barzykowski, 2019; Sjåstad & Baumeister, 2018).…”

Time to Set a New Research Agenda for Ego Depletion and Self-Control

“…Future studies may consider the systematic exploration of different depleting tasks, or task durations (e.g., first tasks lasting for half an hour or more), as means to evoke ego depletion, especially for these who devote higher engagement in the depleting task. Several recent attempts are consistent with this suggestion (Brown & Bray, 2017;Lopez, Courtney, & Wagner, 2019;Palma, Segovia, Kassas, Ribera, & Hall, 2018;Tsai & Li, 2019).…”

Reconceptualizing Ego Depletion as Transient Cognitive Fatigue

“…OBSERVATION #10: SEF is typically not captured in most depletion studies because the tasks are too short. Longer manipulations of depletion do reliably decrease performance (Sjåstad & Baumeister, 2018;Guilfoyle et al, 2019;Brown & Bray, 2017;Lopez et al, 2019;Palma et al, 2018;Tsai & Li, 2019). It is likely that these studies capture TCF-related decreases in performance, coupled with decreased effort provision in lieu of entering the RF phase, which leads to decreased performance.…”

“…Researchers must also employ more strongly designed manipulations of TCF compared to many of the depletion manipulations used in prior literature. For example, some recent studies in the depletion literature use manipulations ranging from 24 minutes to two hours (e.g., Sjåstad & Baumeister, 2018;Guilfoyle et al, 2019;Brown & Bray, 2017;Lopez et al, 2019;Palma et al, 2018;Tsai & Li, 2019) and find significant effects on subsequent performance. While some of these studies closer to the two-hour range may arguably be capturing SEF rather than TCF, the important aspect is that these manipulations are generally far stronger than those that are less than ten minutes in duration, typical of the depletion literature (e.g., the Hagger et al, 2016 RRR used a manipulation of ~7.5 minutes).…”