Oshouei, Parisa Babazadeh (2017) Effects of Ego-depletion on Stroop Tasks. Honours thesis, University of Southern Queensland. (Unpublished)
Abstract
Self-control is essential for a healthy psychological functioning and draws energy from a general, unitary, and finite resource (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998). The state of depleted self-control resource is called “ego-depletion” (Lee, Chatzisarantis, & Hagger, 2016). The current experimental study examines the effects of ego-depletion using the widely accepted Stroop task (Hagger, Wood, Stiff, & Chatzisariantis, 2010) to measure and observe self-control performance and the depletion effect respectively. The study has two aims: the first is to replicate the Tehan, G., Marrington, Ireland, and Tehan, J., (2017) study in testing the assumptions of strength model of self-control. The second aim is to address the absence of depletion effect found in the Tehan et al. study. The current study will increase the number of outcome tasks from one to five tasks to increase the demand on participants selfcontrol resources. It was hypothesised that the extended outcome task would demand more self-control energy resources and result in an ego-depletion effect. One hundred participants were divided into experimental (depletion), and control (non-depletion) groups. Initially, a pre-test (Stroop task) assessment was administered to both groups, then the letter “e” task (manipulation task) was administered to the depletion group while the control group rested for 15 minutes. Finally, a post-test (five times Stroop task) assessment was conducted for both groups. Results partially replicated the Tehan et al.’s study. Findings revealed that selfcontrol resources were being depleted corroborating with Tehan et al.’s study. Additionally, results further supported Tehan et al.’s findings that depletion and Stroop tasks did not employ common resources. In contrast to results from Tehan et al., this study found the depletion effect was observed on post-test one. Finally, the examination of the second aim of the study revealed an absence of the depletion effect on post-test five suggesting practice effects contributed to the performance on the Stroop task.
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| Item Type: | Thesis (Non-Research) (Honours) |
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| Item Status: | Live Archive |
| Additional Information: | Current UniSQ staff and students can request access to this thesis. Please email research.repository@unisq.edu.au with a subject line of SEAR thesis request and provide: Name of the thesis requested and Your name and UniSQ email address |
| Faculty/School / Institute/Centre: | Historic - Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences - School of Psychology and Counselling (1 Jan 2015 - 31 Dec 2021) |
| Supervisors: | Gerry Tehan |
| Date Deposited: | 20 Aug 2025 01:49 |
| Last Modified: | 20 Aug 2025 01:49 |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | self-control, ego-depletion, Stroop task |
| Fields of Research (2008): | 17 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 1799 Other Psychology and Cognitive Sciences > 179999 Psychology and Cognitive Sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Fields of Research (2020): | 52 PSYCHOLOGY > 5299 Other psychology > 529999 Other psychology not elsewhere classified |
| URI: | https://sear.unisq.edu.au/id/eprint/52638 |
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