Two Psychologists Four Beers - Episodes Tagged with “Ego Depletion”

Episode 127: The Great Canadian Euthanasia Experiment (with Mickey Inzlicht)

Yoel Inbar, Michael Inzlicht, and Alexa Tullett — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 13:15:00 -0500

Mickey and Yoel talk about Canada's controversial euthanasia law (called MAID: medical assistance in dying). Since its introduction in 2016, an increasing number of Canadians are choosing euthanasia (in recent years, more than 5% of deaths in Canada were the result of MAID). We talk about the history of the law, criticism of it in Canada and abroad, and our own discomfort (or lack of) with legal euthanasia.

Separately, we also discuss a new paper that claims to show robust ego depletion effects--but is it just showing fatigue by another name?

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Episode 31: Is Ego Depletion Real?

Yoel Inbar, Michael Inzlicht, and Alexa Tullett — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 05:00:00 -0400

By listener request, Yoel quizzes Mickey about ego depletion. How did we start studying it? How has the replication crisis changed how we think about it? After more than a decade studying ego depletion, does Mickey still have any faith in the phenomenon?

Bonus: what does it mean to say, "don't @ me"?

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De Hemel Brewery
Don't @ me
The Strength Model of Self-Control — 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.
Is Ego Depletion Real? An Analysis of Arguments — 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.
Self-Control, Ego Depletion, and Social Psychology’s Replication Crisis — Provides Baumeister's perspective on ego depletion and its status in the context of psychology's replication crisis. Reviews history, controversy, evidence.
A series of meta-analytic tests of the depletion effect: Self-control does not seem to rely on a limited resource. - PsycNET — 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.
Bias-Correction Techniques Alone Cannot Determine Whether Ego Depletion is Different from Zero: Commentary on Carter, Kofler, Forster, & McCullough, 2015 by Michael Inzlicht, Will Gervais, Elliot Berkman :: SSRN — 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.
RRR – The Ego-Depletion Paradigm — 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].

Episode 4: The Replication Crisis Gets Personal

Yoel Inbar, Michael Inzlicht, and Alexa Tullett — Wed, 04 Jul 2018 13:00:00 -0400

In their most emotional episode yet, Yoel and Mickey discuss the replication crisis in psychology. What is meant by the replication crisis and how did it get started? Why does it appear like the field is split into two, with some young academics actively trying to reform psychology and more senior scholars suggesting the problems have been mostly overstated? How have academics dealt with the possibility that their own work might not be robust and replicable? Finally, how did one of the most notorious academic fraudsters get caught?

Bonus: Did Mickey spike Toxoplasma gondii (crazy cat lady parasite) in Yoel’s beer?

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