Research paper
Vohs KD, Baumeister RF, Schmeichel BJ, Twenge JM, Nelson NM, Tice DM. “Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: a limited-resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2008;94(5):883-898. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.94.5.883. PMID: 18444745.
Why we cite it
Extends the ego depletion model from self-control to decision-making, providing experimental evidence that making choices — not just resisting temptation — depletes the same limited psychological resource used for self-regulation. This is the paper the popular term “decision fatigue” is built on: it reports that accumulated decisions degrade subsequent self-control across multiple domains (physical endurance, persistence, procrastination, cognitive performance), with a field study confirming the effect in real-world shopping.
This record sits inside the corpus’s most contested literature, and said nothing about it until 2026-09-02 (card SP97Y7). Vohs 2008 is an ego-depletion paper — its own abstract frames it as ”the hypothesis that making many choices impairs subsequent self-control”, draws on ”a limited-resource model of self-regulation and executive function”, and closes on ”Further studies suggested that choosing is more depleting than merely deliberating”. Every claim here is hedged by its authors and this record’s summary was not. (Two quotation corrections 2026-09-19, both found only when the published abstract was filed: the limited-resource model was the restatement’s article, not the paper’s, and *the closing quotation ”these findings suggest…” appears in neither the published abstract nor the restatement — it was composed at this record’s layer and presented as the authors’ words. The paper’s hedge is real and is quoted above in its place.)
`ked01` carries the treatment and a drafter reaching for decision fatigue opens this record, not that file — so the bar is repeated here rather than pointed at. The limited-resource model has not replicated cleanly: large preregistered tests found effects indistinguishable from zero. `ked01`’s standing ruling is contested, never debunked. A page may say Vohs and colleagues found that choosing depleted subsequent self-control in four laboratory studies. It may not present decision fatigue as an established mechanism*, and it may not use “foundational” to mean “settled” — the word describes this paper’s influence, not its confirmation.
DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.94.5.883 · PubMed 18444745 · Publisher