Making Sense of Ego Depletion: The Replication Crisis, a Path Forward, and Lessons for Accounting Researchers

Ego depletion, an influential social psychology theory that has been recently applied in auditing research, is embroiled in a crisis following unsuccessful attempts to replicate the phenomenon. I analyze the threats to ego depletion as a phenomenon and to the strength model of self-regulation as its theoretical explanation. Although I conclude depletion is a real phenomenon, it is likely overstated in prior literature. I further conclude that the strength model is not the best theoretical explanation for depletion. Rather, I leverage an updated view of ego depletion as transient cognitive fatigue to provide a path forward for auditing researchers to continue investigating this phenomenon. Using an experiment with senior associate auditors and a complex estimates task, I present exploratory evidence consistent with the fatigue explanation. Finally, I highlight several lessons for auditing researchers in the context of normal scientific progress that arise out of the crisis in depletion research.