Do exhausted primary school students cheat more? A randomized field experiment

Abstract

Motivated by the two-decade-long scientific debate over the existence of the ego-depletion effect, our paper contributes to exploring the scope conditions of ego-depletion theory. Specifically, in a randomized experiment, we depleted students’ self-control with a cognitively demanding task that required students’ effort. We measured the effect of depleted self-control on a subsequent task that required self-control to not engage in fraudulent cheating behavior—measured with an incentivized dice-roll task—and tested ego-depletion in a large-scale preregistered field experiment that was similar to real-life situations. We hypothesized that treated students would cheat more. The data confirms the hypothesis and provides causal evidence of the ego-depletion effect. Our results provide new insights into the scope conditions of ego-depletion theory, contribute methodological information for future research, and offer practical guidance for educational policy.

Multi-Site Replications in Social Psychology: Reflections, Implications, and Future Directions

“…Published significant findings numbered around 600 already some years ago (Friese et al, 2019). There are preregistered successful replications (Garrison et al, 2019; Keller & Kiss, 2021) and multiple and diverse non-laboratory real-world findings (e.g., Danziger et al, 2011; Hurley, 2015; Philpot et al, 2018; Trinh et al, 2021). We are hard pressed to find many other findings in social psychology that can match that, except perhaps elaboration likelihood model (see below).…”

Three Pathways Into Chronic Lack of Energy as a Mental Health Complaint

“…Soccer referees perform worse when depleted (Samuel et al, 2018). Students cheat more on tests when depleted (Keller & Kiss, 2021). A large experience sampling study found that people often reported feeling depleted as they went about their daily lives – and reports of depletion were associated with many problems, including more interpersonal conflict and poorer quality of sleep (Baumeister et al, 2019).…”

What Influences Someone to have Compulsive Buying Behavior? A Case of Indonesian Migrant Workers in Taiwan

“…Acts of selfcontrol cause short-term impairments in subsequent self-control, known as ego depletion [25]. Depleted self-control resources result in impulsive behaviors [26], affecting long-term goals and increasing risk-taking and dishonesty [27,28,29]. Ego depletion also impacts decisionmaking, increasing dishonesty and reducing goal adherence [30,31].…”