ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the ego-depletion effect, which is synonymous with a resource depletion or ‘strength model’ account of self-control but has also been proposed to be controlled by cognitive and motivational mechanisms. Evidence for the ego-depletion effect and the resource depletion model has been almost exclusively derived from experiments using the sequential task paradigm. Research using the sequential task paradigm has also been criticized for the relative brevity of the tasks used. A key issue for researchers investigating self-control from the resource depletion perspective is which tasks or measures to adopt to evoke depletion and to test its effects on self-control capacity. Numerous taxonomies of self-control tasks used in ego-depletion experiments have been developed. Baumeister and colleagues were the first to suggest that tasks were derived from different domains of self-control with the domains determined by the specific processes tapped by the tasks.
