Psychology · Behavioural Psychology
A topic within Behavioural Psychology, itself one of 9 topics in that field and part of Psychology.
Assumes you know the vocabulary.
Cognitive and Attentional Mechanisms in Delay of Gratification
Walter Mischel, Ebbe B. Ebbesen & Antonette R. Zeiss · 1972
The original marshmallow-test paper, showing preschoolers wait longer for a larger reward when taught to distract themselves from the reward's…
+2 more at this level
Primary sources and full treatments.
A Multilab Preregistered Replication of the Ego-Depletion Effect
Martin S. Hagger et al. · 2016
A pre-registered replication across 23 labs and over 2,000 participants found an ego-depletion effect indistinguishable from zero, directly…
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Walter Mischel, Ebbe B. Ebbesen & Antonette R. Zeiss
The original marshmallow-test paper, showing preschoolers wait longer for a larger reward when taught to distract themselves from the reward's arousing features rather than dwell on them.
Roy F. Baumeister, Ellen Bratslavsky, Mark Muraven & Dianne M. Tice
Argues self-control draws on a single, limited psychological resource that is depleted by use, so resisting one temptation leaves less willpower for the next - a widely cited claim a large multi-lab replication later found little evidence for.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Tyler W. Watts, Greg J. Duncan & Haonan Quan
A large, more socioeconomically diverse conceptual replication of the marshmallow test finds the link between preschool delay-of-gratification and later achievement is roughly half the size originally reported, and shrinks further once family background and early cognitive ability are controlled for.
link checked 17 Sept 2026Martin S. Hagger et al.
A pre-registered replication across 23 labs and over 2,000 participants found an ego-depletion effect indistinguishable from zero, directly contradicting decades of smaller studies that had reported it reliably.
link checked 17 Sept 2026