Inactivating the Active Self: Ego Depletion and the Implicit Association Test

Abstract

This paper reviews current research regarding ego depletion, the prominent contemporary theory of self-control, and implicit association tests (IATs), a method of determining the strength of an individual’s automatic associations between implicit mental representations. While IATs are intended to be a pure measure of implicit associations, they are shown to be subject to the effects of many unintended factors. A new experiment is presented that tests the effect of ego depletion on IAT results. Although the experiment is inconclusive, several possible explanations and potential for further research are discussed.