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Ego depletion increases risk-

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Ego Depletion Increases Risk-

Taking
a b
Peter Fischer , Andreas Kastenmüller & Kathrin
a
Asal
a
University of Regensburg
b
Liverpool John-Moores University
Published online: 18 Jul 2012.
To cite this article: Peter Fischer , Andreas Kastenmüller & Kathrin Asal (2012) Ego
Depletion Increases Risk-Taking, The Journal of Social Psychology, 152:5, 623-638,
DOI: 10.1080/00224545.2012.683894
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The Journal of Social Psychology, 2012, 152(5), 623–638
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Ego Depletion Increases Risk-Taking

PETER FISCHER
ANDREAS KASTENMÜLLER
Liverpool John-Moores University
KATHRIN ASAL
ABSTRACT. We investigated how the availability of self-control resources affects

risk-taking inclinations and behaviors. We proposed that risk-taking often occurs from
suboptimal decision processes and heuristic information processing (e.g., when a smoker
suppresses or neglects information about the health risks of smoking). Research revealed
that depleted self-regulation resources are associated with reduced intellectual performance
and reduced abilities to regulate spontaneous and automatic responses (e.g., control aggres-
sive responses in the face of frustration). The present studies transferred these ideas to the
area of risk-taking. We propose that risk-taking is increased when individuals find them-
selves in a state of reduced cognitive self-control resources (ego-depletion). Four studies
supported these ideas. In Study 1, ego-depleted participants reported higher levels of sensa-
tion seeking than non-depleted participants. In Study 2, ego-depleted participants showed
higher levels of risk-tolerance in critical road traffic situations than non-depleted partic-
ipants. In Study 3, we ruled out two alternative explanations for these results: neither
cognitive load nor feelings of anger mediated the effect of ego-depletion on risk-taking.
Finally, Study 4 clarified the underlying psychological process: ego-depleted participants
feel more cognitively exhausted than non-depleted participants and thus are more will-
ing to take risks. Discussion focuses on the theoretical and practical implications of these
findings.
Keywords: ego depletion, risk-taking, self-regulation, self-control, sensation seeking
IN RECENT YEARS, RISKY ACTIVITIES such as extreme sports, illegal

streetcar racing, and public binge drinking have become both fashionable and
commonplace in Western society (cf. Fischer, Kubitzki, Guter, & Frey, 2007).
Address correspondence to Peter Fischer, University of Regensburg, Department of

Psychology, Universitätsstr. 31, Regensburg 93053, Germany; peter.fischer@psychologie.
uni-regensburg.de (e-mail).
623
624 The Journal of Social Psychology
Against the backdrop of a basic human need for safety, the thrill of some forms
of risk-taking nonetheless seem irresistible to many of us (cf. Fischer, Guter, &
Frey, 2008), not least because risky behavior can also lead to positive outcomes
such as winning the lottery or experiencing positive emotions and excitement
(e.g., Bruyneel, Dewitte, Franses, & Dekimpe, 2009). Nevertheless, this increase
in spontaneous risky behaviors, and in their media exposure and visibility, is a
cause for public concern because many such behaviors carry the potential for
harm beyond the individual level. For example, they increase overall costs for
public security and health systems. Thus, it is important to ask when and why
people are most inclined to take unnecessary risks.

We argue that it would be profitable for researchers to consider the role of the
active self in managing and avoiding risks. In situations where the risky behavior
is spontaneous and the “easy” one (e.g., smoking a cigarette, driving too fast in
the face of time pressure, or stopping to diet), resisting risk-taking is an effort-
ful process that can require the active exercise of self-control. For example, we
need self-control to suppress risk-promoting short-term goals (e.g., feel imme-
diate pleasure) in favor of risk-reducing long-term goals (e.g., stay healthy; for a
review, see Baumeister, 1997). A lack of self-regulatory resources should interrupt
these processes and thus make people more likely to engage in risky behaviors.
In the present research, we investigate these ideas experimentally.
Self-Regulation and Ego-Depletion
To self-regulate is to exert control over prepotent (i.e., automatic) psycholog-

ical and behavioral responses. This ability is closely associated with successful
social functioning across a wide range of indicators (Tangney, Baumeister, &
Boone, 2004), but it appears to draw upon a limited resource (Baumeister,
Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998). When individuals exercise self-control,
this resource is continuously reduced, eventually resulting in a state referred to
as “ego depletion.” In this state, individuals show reduced performance at other
tasks that draw on the same self-regulatory resource of self-regulation (see also
Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). The resource appears to be global in the sense
that this negative effect holds in domains as diverse as increased biases in basic
information processing (Fischer, Greitemeyer, & Frey, 2008); reduced individual-
level intellectual performance (Schmeichel, Vohs, & Baumeister, 2003); and
reduced social self-presentation abilities (Vohs, Baumeister, & Ciarocco, 2005).
The present research investigates whether risk-taking constitutes another impor-
tant area of psychological and behavioral responding that requires self-regulation.
The Role of Self-Regulation in Responses to Risk: The Present Research
The present research works with a definition of risk suggested by Ben-Zur

and Zeidner (2009): “Risk taking refers to one’s purposive participation in some
Fischer, Kastenmüller, & Asal 625
form of behavior that involves potential negative consequences or losses (social,

monetary, interpersonal) as well as perceived positive consequences or gains”
(p. 110). Risk-taking can be observed in various areas of life, such as road traffic
(e.g., reckless driving, street racing, driving without seat belts), unhealthy liv-
ing (smoking, drinking, illegal drugs), promiscuous sexuality (unprotected sex,
promiscuity), or dangerous sport activities (e.g., solo climbing) (cf. Ben-Zur &
Zeidner, 2009). A big deal of previous research on risk-taking has come from
the literatures on personality, on the one hand, and judgment and decision mak-
ing, on the other. For example, researchers have focused on predicting risky
decision-making (Erb, Bioy & Hilton, 2002; Wilde, Robertson & Pless, 2002; for
an overview on dual process models of risk-taking, see also Gerrard, Gibbons,
Houlihan, Stock, & Pomery, 2008), identifying the personality traits of risk-
takers (see Andresen, 2002; Gniech, Oetting & Brohl, 1993; Levenson, 1990;
McCrae & Costa, 1997; Zuckerman, 1971), and identifying emotional processes
that increase risk-taking inclinations (e.g. Loewenstein, Weber, Hsee, & Welch,
2001). Researchers with an interest in application have also looked into how
risk-taking can be counteracted, by identifying effective ways to inform people
about risks (Rimal, Fogg, & Flora, 1995; Rowan, 1995; Tyler & Cook, 1984;
Witte, 1995), harnessing the power of the media to persuade people to reduce
risks (Pechmann, 2001), and designing more successful anti-risk campaigns
(Strahan, Spencer & Zanna, 2002). Other research investigated the deleterious
effects of risk-promoting media (Fischer, Greitmeyer, Kastenmüller, Vogrincic, &
Saver, 2011; Charlesworth & Glantz, 2005; Sargent, Beach, Dalton et al., 2001;
Titus-Ernstoff, Dalton, Adachi-Mejia, Longacre, & Beach, 2008).
The present investigation departs from past research by focusing on the
role of the active self in a variety of actual and self-reported risk-taking behav-
ior. It is investigated whether a breakdown in self-regulatory processes can
lead to increased levels of risk-taking. This argument rests on the observa-
tion that recognizing and avoiding risks requires the successful functioning of
a number of cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes. Individuals need
intellectual and attentional resources to recognize and forecast risks in order to
perform an adequate risk analysis in a complex environment. We need to sup-
press the exciting emotions and adrenaline rush that are often associated with
risky behaviors. We need to prioritize long-term over short-term gratification
(cf. Baumeister, 1997). Each of these risk analysis and risk avoidance processes
requires self-control and suffers when regulatory capacity is impaired.
This line of reasoning is also supported by previous research showing that
negative affect increases risk-taking (Peeza Leith & Baumeister, 1996). In this
theoretical context, Bruyneel and colleagues (2009) found that negative affect
leads to increased risk-taking (i.e. willingness to buy lottery tickets) because
associated mood-repair processes (i.e., individuals try to recover from negative
mood) require self-regulation resources. More recently, Freeman and Muraven
(2010) showed in context of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task that ego-depleted
individuals are more inclined to take risks than non-depleted individuals. The
present studies go beyond this previous research (a) by employing different forms
of cognitive resource depletion that go beyond mere depleting mood regulation
processes (as in the Bruyneel et al., 2009 study); (b) by directly investigating the
psychological process (i.e., cognitive fatigue) underlying the connection between
ego-depletion and risk-taking; (c) by employing a broader variety of (real-
life-relevant) risk-taking measures as outcome variables than previous research
conducted by Bruyneel et al., 2009 and Freeman and Muraven (2010) (i.e. sen-
sation seeking, risk-tolerance in road traffic, various domains of self-reported
risk-taking behavior, and risk-perception); and finally (d) by ruling out further
alternative explanations based on cognitive load, anger, and mere negativity.
In sum, we propose that individuals in an ego-depleted state should be less
able to recognize, forecast, and manage risks, and thus should show increased lev-
els of risk-taking inclinations compared to non-depleted individuals. These effects
should be mediated by a sense of cognitive exhaustion, since Muraven, Tice,
and Baumeister (1998, Study 4) have shown that failures in self-regulation are
associated with feelings of exhaustion, fatigue, and reduced exertion. The present
studies test this line of argumentation.
Study 1
In Study 1, we focused on sensation seeking, which is one of the primary and

most prominent determinants of risk-taking behavior (Zuckerman, 1971; Fischer,
Guter, & Frey, 2008; Fischer et al., 2011). We systematically manipulated the
availability of self-regulatory resources in order to test the idea that reduced
regulatory capacity increases sensation seeking.
Method
Participants and Design
Thirty-three students from the University of Munich (22 women and 11 men;
ages ranging from 17 to 56; M = 27.15, SD = 8.70) participated in this experi-
ment for course credit. The between-subjects design consisted of two conditions
(depletion vs. no depletion).
Materials and Procedure
Participants in both experimental conditions learned that they were to par-

ticipate in two independent studies. Ostensibly, the first study would deal with
processes of cognitive imagination, whereas the second study would be a sur-
vey on personal attitudes. The high depletion manipulation was similar to the
“white bear” paradigm of Wegner, Schneider, Carter, and White’s (1987), which
we (Fischer, Greitemeyer, & Frey, 2008) and others have successfully used to
manipulate regulatory resources in previous research. Participants were asked to
imagine a visit to the zoo and to write down every animal that came to mind
during this imaginary journey. Participants in the high depletion condition were
instructed not to think about a white bear. Whenever they thought of a white
bear they should suppress this thought, mark it with an “x” in the questionnaire,
and continue thinking about other animals and situations in the zoo. In contrast,
participants in the low depletion condition made a journey through the zoo but
received no such extra instruction about suppressing thoughts on a white bear or

alternatively just watched a series of pictures about terrorism.1
To assess risk-taking inclinations, participants completed a German short ver-
sion based on the standard measure of sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 1971). This
instrument comprises 20 items like “It would be exciting to witness a car accident”
and “It would be exciting to be involved in a war as a soldier” (0 = not at all; 10 =
definitely; α = 0.53). After completing this measure, participants were thoroughly
debriefed.
Results and Discussion
Check for Effects of Gender and Age
A 2 (depletion) × 2 (gender) factorial ANOVA with sensation seeking as the

dependent variable revealed that participants’ gender did not significantly affect
the dependent variable and did not interact with the experimental manipulation,
all Fs < 1.10, all ps > .32. Since age was significantly associated with sensation
seeking (r = −.48, p < .01), we conducted all tests employing age as a covariate
(see below).
Sensation Seeking
An ANCOVA revealed that participants in the high depletion condition (M =

5.05, SD = 0.69) reported significantly higher levels of sensation seeking than
participants in the low depletion condition (M = 4.25, SD = 0.89), F(1,30) =
8.32, p = .007, η2 = 22.
Study 1 provides evidence that experimentally reducing self-regulation
resources causes individuals to report increased levels of sensation seeking—
one of the most prominent predictors of actual increased risk-taking behavior
(Zuckerman, 1971; Fischer, Guter, & Frey, 2008). The second control condi-
tion employing pictures about terrorism revealed that this effect is unlikely to
be due to mere negativity that may be elicited by the high depletion manipula-
tion. This represents initial evidence that ego depletion may be associated with
increased risk-taking. We followed up this result with a study that employed an
alternative measure of risk-taking—one with more obvious and direct application

to real-world behavior.
Study 2
To obtain the strongest converging evidence that ego depletion increases risk-
taking inclinations, in Study 2 we manipulated self-regulatory resources with an
alternative task. We also used a more ecologically valid measure of risky behavior
in a quasi-simulated driving paradigm. As in Study 1, we expected that ego-
depleted participants would show higher risk-taking inclinations in the driving

test than control participants.
Method
Thirty students from the University of Munich (25 women and 5 men; ages
ranging from 18 to 53; M = 23.83, SD = 8.59) participated in this experiment for
course credit. The design was identical to Study 1.
To manipulate self-regulation resources we used an emotion control task,

which has been successfully employed by Baumeister and colleagues (1998),
Fischer, Greitemeyer, and Frey (2008), and Schmeichel and colleagues (2003).
Participants were informed that the study would investigate the association
between the experience of emotions and driving behavior. The first part of the
investigation involved watching an amusing animated cartoon. In the depletion
condition, participants were told to try not to experience, feel, or show any emo-
tions while watching the funny cartoon. In contrast, in the no-depletion condition,
participants were told to “let their emotions freely flow” while watching the
funny cartoon. Following these instructions, all participants watched a five-minute
video clip from the U.S. cartoon series The Simpsons. The funniness of the video
clip was checked by face value of all persons involved in the planning of this
study.
After the manipulation of self-regulation resources, participants reported
their positive and negative emotions (measured with the PANAS; Watson,
Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) and then worked on a task designed to simulate
risky road traffic situations. Specifically, we used the Vienna Risk Taking Test
(WRBTV; Schuhfried, 2006), a reliable, valid measure (see Fischer et al., 2007)
that uses response times to assess individuals’ willingness to take driving risks.
Participants sit in front of a computer monitor and learn that they will take
the driver’s perspective in 15 videotaped road traffic situations. While taking
the driver’s perspective, participants are exposed to risky situations, such as

critical overtaking maneuvers or arrival at railroad crossings that have begun
to close. Participants watch each critical situation two times. In the first trial,
they are instructed only to watch the situation. In the second trial, participants
are instructed to indicate when they would abandon the maneuver by pressing
a key on the computer keyboard. Across all 15 situations, the time that elapsed
between the start of the sequence and the participant’s decision to abandon it
was employed as a dependent measure of risk-taking inclination in critical road
traffic situations (i.e. the longer participants wait to press the button in order to
abandon the critical situation, the higher the risk-taking). After participants com-
pleted the risk-taking measure (which took 10–15 minutes), they were thoroughly
debriefed.
A 2 (depletion) × 2 (gender) factorial ANOVA with age as a covariate yielded

that neither age nor gender was significantly associated with risk-taking in the
WBRTV, all Fs < 2.75, all ps > .10. Positive and negative affect were not
significantly associated with risk-taking in the WBRTV, all Fs < 1.
Risk Acceptance on the Road
An independent samples t-test revealed that participants in the depletion con-

dition (M = 7.49, SD = 1.16) were less cautious in critical road traffic situations
than participants in the control condition (M = 6.46, SD = 1.46), t(28) = −2.14,
p = .04, d = 0.78. That is, across situations, they waited on average a full second
longer to abandon the risky driving manoeuvre. This effect was still significant
(p = .048) when we statistically controlled in an ANCOVA for positive and
negative emotions.
In sum, Study 2 provided an important conceptual replication of the find-
ings of Study 1. Here again, participants in a state of ego-depletion were more
inclined to risk-taking than non-depleted participants—this time on a measure
with clear application to real-world behavior. Since the effect was still significant
when we controlled for positive and negative emotions, it is unlikely that it is due
to aggression or frustration. A potential limitation of Study 2 is that the effects
of ego-depletion on increased reaction times in the driving-related risk-taking
measure could be alternatively explained by passivity, which is often associ-
ated with states of ego-depletion (see Baumeister et al., 1998).2 The next study
tries to (a) circumvent these problems by using a different risk-taking measure
and (b) elucidate the underlying psychological mechanism related to cognitive
exhaustion.
Study 3
Our argument is that the observed relationship derives from the fact that ego
depletion results in cognitive exhaustion. Thus, cognitive exhaustion is measured
in the next study as potential mediator for the link between ego-depletion and
risk-taking. In addition, we tried to rule out two alternative explanations for our
effect. First, we tested whether the effect of ego-depletion on risk-taking could
be accounted for by cognitive load—a mental state in which participants’ cogni-
tive resources are reduced by a concurrent task (e.g., Ditto & Lopez, 1992; Ditto,
Scepansky, Munro, Apanovitch, & Lockhart (1998). Although ego-depletion and

cognitive load are conceptually distinct (Fischer, Greitemeyer, & Frey, 2008;
Muraven & Baumeister, 2000), manipulations of regulatory resources sometimes
also result in cognitive load. It is thus incumbent upon us to demonstrate that cog-
nitive load is not necessarily the “active ingredient” in our effects (even though in
some but not all psychological domains cognitive load has similar effects as ego-
depletion; e.g., Vohs & Heatherton, 2000; Ward & Mann, T., 2000). In Study 3,
we introduced an additional cognitive load condition to rule out that cognitive
load may be an alternative explanation for the impact of reduced self-regulation
resources on risk-taking inclinations.
A second potential alternative explanation concerns negative affect. The ego-
depletion manipulation might have induced anger or frustration, which might
have increased risk-taking in the high depletion condition due to excitation trans-
fer (Zillman, 1983) or mood repair (for a discussion, see Bruyneel et al., 2009).
To further rule out this alternative explanation (see results of Study 2), we addi-
tionally measured anger as an emotional state directly related to aggression right
after the depletion manipulation.
Method
Seventy-four students of the University of Munich (48 women, 25 men, and

1 who did not indicate his or her sex; ages ranging from 19 to 49; M = 25.15,
SD = 5.57) participated in this experiment for course credit. Two participants
had to be excluded because they were outliers on the main dependent risk-taking
measure of more than 3 standard deviations.3 Participants were randomly assigned
to one of three conditions (low depletion vs. high depletion vs. cognitive load) in
a between-participants design.
Material and Procedure
To increase the generalizability of our effect, in this study we manipu-

lated ego depletion in two different ways for different samples of participants
(participants received either ego-depletion manipulation 1 (low depletion: N =

15; high depletion: N = 13) or ego-depletion manipulation 2 (low depletion: N =
15; high depletion: N = 13) and then were collapsed in subsequent analyses).4
Manipulation 1 was the “white bear” paradigm as described in Study 1 (cognitive
control task); manipulation 2 was an emotion control task derived from previous
ego-depletion manipulations dealing with emotion control (e.g., Baumeister et al.,
1998; Schmeichel et al., 2003). Participants were confronted with five emotionally
shocking pictures (e.g., a victim of a traffic accident), displayed for 30 seconds
each. Participants in the high depletion condition were instructed to suppress any
emotional reaction while looking at the pictures. Participants in the low depletion
condition were informed that they could “let their emotions freely flow” while
watching the pictures. The last group of participants received a cognitive load
induction in which they were asked to memorize a 7-digit number and keep it in
memory while they worked on the subsequent risk-taking measure (this induction
was adapted from Ditto and Lopez, 1992).
After participants received the appropriate manipulation, we measured anger
by asking participants on a scale from 1 (not at all) to 5 (extremely) to what
extent they feel angry, hostile, and irritated (α = 0.63). Finally, to assess risk-
taking, participants completed a version of the “domain-specific risk-taking scale
for adult populations” (DOSPERT; Weber, Blais, & Betz, 2002) revised by Blais
and Weber (2006). This instrument included self-reported risk-taking behavior in
five different domains: (a) risk-taking in context of social behavior (e.g., “I would
drink too much on a public party”), (b) health safety behavior (e.g., “I would
engage in unprotected sex”), (c) ethical behavior (e.g., “I would start an affair
with a married person”), (d) financial behavior (e.g., “I would invest one daily
income in a poker game”), and (e) leisure and sports activities (e.g., “I would drive
a motorbike without a helmet”) (see Blais & Weber, 2006, p. 45). The scores of
all variables of the different subscales were averaged to form an overall index of
risk-taking (α = .68), whereas high values mean more risk-taking. Afterwards,
the experiment was over and participants were debriefed.
Check for Anger as an Alternative Explanation
With regard to reported anger, we found no significant differences between

the high depletion (M = 1.68, SD = 0.57), non-depletion (M = 1.82, SD =
0.74), and cognitive load condition (M = 1.79, SD = 0.87), F < 1. We also
tested a potential indirect effect of the high vs. low depletion manipulation on
risk-taking via anger. To test whether anger mediates the effect of ego-depletion
on risk-taking, we conducted a bootstrapping analysis based on 5000 bootstraps
(Preacher & Hayes, 2004). The results showed no significant indirect effect
via anger (95% CI [−.05, .06]). Thus, it is unlikely that differences in anger
potentially elicited by the ego-depletion manipulation can explain the effect of

ego-depletion on risk-taking.
Risk-Taking
A one-way ANOVA revealed a marginal significant omnibus effect for exper-

imental condition, F(2,69) = 2.49, p = .09, η2 = .07.5 Post hoc tests (Tukey)
conducted on an individual condition level revealed that participants in the high
depletion condition (M = 3.31) reported marginally higher levels of risk-taking
than non-depleted participants (M = 2.97) (p = .079). In contrast, no significant

difference were found between the non-depletion condition and the load condition
(p = .85), as well as between the high depletion condition and the load condition
(p = .38).
In sum, Study 3 in tendency replicated the effects of the previous studies
with a standardized behavioral risk-taking self-report measure that measures a
broad variety of risk-taking domains, such as risky decision making and health
care. Please note that the replication was only marginally significant, which may
be caused by the relatively weak Chronbach’s alpha of the risk-taking index
(which could cause type II error). Also, our anger measure has a relatively weak
Chronbach’s alpha, which might be avoided in future research by employing
more physiological measure such as galvanic skin response or pulse rate. It is
also important to add that the employed cognitive load task might be one of
low external validity since it is unclear how demanding the memorizing of the
7-digit number for each individual was. Nevertheless, we showed that anger
does not mediate the present effect, and cognitive load does not produce the
same increase in risk-taking. Ego depletion, then, uniquely changes the rela-
tionship between the self and risk. We argue that the underlying psychological
process that drives this shift is cognitive exhaustion. The final study addresses
this idea.
Study 4
We argued above that recognizing and avoiding environmental risks requires

the successful functioning of a number of effortful cognitive, emotional and
motivational processes. As soon as individuals have exhausted their regulatory
(self-control) resources, these processes become impaired and individuals are
less able to resist the impetus to take risks. Consequently, feelings of exhaus-
tion should mediate the effect of ego-depletion on risk-taking. Hence, in the
following study we measured self-reports of exhaustion and examined whether
perceived exhaustion mediates the expected effect that ego-depleted participants
report higher levels of risk-taking on a standardized self-report measure than do
non-depleted participants.
Method
Thirty-eight students from the University of Munich participated in this

experiment. One participant had to be excluded from further analyses because of
considerable problems with the German language. This leaves 37 participants in
the final sample (22 women and 15 men; ages ranging from 19 to 31; M = 21.57,
SD = 2.53). The between-subjects design consisted of two conditions (depletion
vs. no depletion).
Participants in both experimental conditions were informed that they were

to participate in two independent studies. To deplete self-regulatory resources,
we used the same emotion control task of Study 3. After the ego-depletion
manipulation we measured the expected mediator “experienced exhaustion” with
the following items: (a) How exhausting did you find the previous task?; (b)
How tiresome did you find the previous task?; (c) How active do you feel?
(recoded); (d) How much did the previous task frustrate you?; (e) How much
did the previous task strain you? Participants’ responses on these items were
z-transformed and averaged to a scale of exhaustion (α = .63). Finally, we
measured risk-taking with the same behavioral risk-taking scale as used in
Experiment 3 (DOSPERT; Blais & Weber, 2006). Please note that high val-
ues represent high risk-taking. After completing this measure, participants were
thoroughly debriefed and thanked for participation.
A 2 (depletion) × 2 (gender) factorial ANOVA with age as a covariate yielded

that neither age nor gender was significantly associated with the risk-taking
measure, all Fs < 3.21, all ps > .08.
Risk-Taking
An independent samples t-test revealed that participants in the high depletion

condition (M = 3.39, SD = 0.48) reported significantly higher levels of risk-
taking than non-depleted participants (M = 3.01, SD = 0.61), t(35) = −2.11, p =
.04, d = 0.69.
Mediational Analyses
To test whether exhaustion mediates the effect of ego-depletion on risk-

taking, we conducted a bootstrapping analysis based on 5000 bootstraps
(Preacher & Hayes, 2004). The results showed a significant direct effect of
ego-depletion on risk-taking, t = 2.11, p = .04, which was reduced to non-
significance, t = 1.27, p = .21, when controlling for exhaustion (the mediator
still was significant, t = 2.17, p = .04). Moreover, this analysis revealed a signif-
icant indirect effect (95% CI [.0023, .3031). Hence, the impact of ego-depletion
on risk-taking was mediated by feelings of exhaustion.

Study 4 replicated the effects of the previous studies. Again we found that
ego-depleted participants were more inclined to risk-taking than non-depleted par-
ticipants. Mediational analyses showed that this effect could be accounted for by
self-reported exhaustion. That is, ego-depleted participants felt more exhausted
than non-depleted participants and thus reported increased levels of risk-taking in
an established self-report measure.
General Discussion
The present research investigated the impact of self-regulation resources on

risk-taking inclinations and behaviors. In many day-to-day risky situations we
must make proactive choices not to take risk, that is to resist the spontaneous
impetus for risk-taking (e.g., resisting to smoke or staying away from unhealthy
fast food). Under these circumstances, we propose that risky behavior may reflect
a failure of self-control, since the twin processes of risk analysis and risk manage-
ment are supported by regulating cognitions, emotions, and motivations. Hence,
individuals with reduced resources for self-regulation were expected to show
increased inclination to take (unnecessary) risks. Four studies supported this idea.
In Study 1, ego-depleted participants reported higher levels of sensation seeking
than non-depleted participants. Study 2 replicated this effect on a more behav-
ioral level by showing that ego-depleted participants had higher reaction times
(i.e., more risk tolerance) in critical road traffic situations than non-depleted par-
ticipants. Study 3 showed that the effect of ego depletion on risk-taking is not
due to cognitive load or anger. Finally, Study 4 found that experienced exhaustion
mediates the effect of ego depletion on risk-taking.
Implications and Limitations
Previous research on risk-taking has mainly focused on practical aspects of

predicting and reducing risk-taking. In contrast, we investigated the role played
by basic self-processes. We found that the active self is involved in avoiding risks
as they arise in real time. Thus, self-regulation—and the resources available for
it—seems to be another crucial ingredient in the basic psychology of risk-taking.
Like numerous other domains, risk management seems to be another phenomenon

that requires the resources of the active self.
Baumeister (1997) speculated about the causal relationships between emo-
tional distress, self-regulation, risk-taking, and self-defeating behavior, challeng-
ing future researchers to empirically investigate the links among these variables
(p. 168). The present studies contribute to this challenge by showing that there
is indeed a causal link between reduced self-regulation resources and increased
risk-taking inclinations. This link holds even when positive and negative emo-
tions have been controlled for (see Studies 2 and 3). Related to the latter point, our
studies are also in line with findings of Bruyneel, Dewitte, Franses, and Dekimpe
(2009), who showed that negative affective states lead to increased risk-taking via
resource depletion caused by attempts to regulate the negative mood states. The
present research goes beyond these findings because we used a broader variety of
risk-taking measures, clarified further details of the underlying psychological pro-
cess (i.e. cognitive exhaustion), and also induced ego-depletion by more cognitive
depletion tasks (see Studies 1 and 2).
A limitation of the present studies is that we mainly relied on self-reports (of
sensation-seeking in Study 1 and risk-taking in Studies 3 and 4). However, Study
2 assessed a form of “real” risk-taking behavior with actual consequences for
the self or others. Although both sensation-seeking (Study 1) and the driving test
(Study 2) are very good predictors for real behavior (cf. Fischer et al., 2007, 2011;
Zuckerman, 1971), future research should nevertheless employ more measures of
real-world risk-taking (e.g., risk-taking in gambles or investment tasks, or risk-
taking in field paradigms).
Future research should also test further potential theoretical accounts for the
presented effect of ego-depletion on risk-taking. For example, one could argue
that ego-depletion generally increases individuals’ striving for rewards, which
also would lead to increased risk-taking without the assumption of reduced cog-
nitive capacities. Based on our assumptions on reduced cognitive capacities, one
could even imagine situations where ego-depletion reduces risk-taking inclina-
tions, given that risk-taking implies a trade-off between potential positive and
negative outcomes (e.g., when reduced cognitive abilities lead to an overestima-
tion of negative outcomes of risk-taking or underestimation of potential positive
outcomes). Future research should further clarify the underlying psychological
processes as well as identify potential moderator variables.6
Nonetheless, our findings have serious practical implications. They sug-
gest that prototypical, mundane decisions about risk—such as “how much will
I drink this evening?”—should never be made in a state of reduced self-regulatory
resources. Many such decisions may have consequences that compromise the
safety of not just the self (e.g., extreme sports) but also others (e.g., binge
drinking; driving behavior). For the sake of these consequences, it is imper-
ative that we better understand the relationship between self-regulation and
risk-taking.
NOTES
1. Both low depletion control conditions (zoo: N = 9; pictures: N = 8) did not sig-
nificantly differ regarding their effect on sensation seeking (zoo: M = 4.19; pictures: M =
4.31). However, they both significantly differed from the high depletion condition (M =
5.05; LSD; zoo: p = .016; pictures: p = .043). Thus, both control conditions were collapsed
for the main analyses.
2. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer of a previous version of this
manuscript for this important point.
3. The mean of the whole sample was M = 3.12 (SD = 0.67); the values of the 2 out-
liers were 5.21 (low depletion condition; 3s from the mean; highest value in the whole
participant sample) and 1.10 (high depletion condition; 3s from the mean; lowest value in
the whole participant sample). If those 2 outliers were included in the analysis no signif-
icant main effect for the experimental condition factor can be observed, F(2,71) = 0.60,
p = .55. Without those outliers the omnibus analysis is marginally significant (see below),
F(2,69) = 2.49, p = .09.
4. For both ego-depletion manipulations, the effect of low vs. high depletion on risk-
taking points into the same direction: Emotion control task: low depletion (M = 2.95, SD =
0.54); high depletion (M = 3.37, SD = 0.77); cognitive control task: low depletion (M =
2.99, SD = 0.60); high depletion (M = 3.26, SD = 0.54).
5. Following the analytic strategy recommended by Rosenthal and Rosnow (1989),
follow-up a priori contrasts revealed that participants in the high depletion condition
reported higher levels of risk-taking (M = 3.31, SD = 0.66; contrast weight: 2) than par-
ticipants in the non-depletion (M = 2.97, SD = 0.56; contrast weight: −1) and cognitive
load condition (M = 3.07, SD = 0.44; contrast weight: −1), t(69) = −2.03, p < .05.
6. We would like to thank an anonymous reviewer of a previous version of this paper
for this important point.
AUTHOR NOTES
Peter Fischer is affiliated with the University of Regensburg. Andreas Kastenmüller

is affiliated with Liverpool John-Moores University. Kathrin Asal is affiliated with the
University of Regensburg.
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Ego depletion increases risk-

ARTICLE in THE JOURNAL OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY · SEPTEMBER 2012

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Ego Depletion Increases Risk-

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2012.683894

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Ego Depletion Increases Risk-Taking

ABSTRACT. We investigated how the availability of self-control resources affects

Keywords: ego depletion, risk-taking, self-regulation, self-control, sensation seeking

IN RECENT YEARS, RISKY ACTIVITIES such as extreme sports, illegal

Address correspondence to Peter Fischer, University of Regensburg, Department of

people are most inclined to take unnecessary risks.

Self-Regulation and Ego-Depletion

To self-regulate is to exert control over prepotent (i.e., automatic) psycholog-

The Role of Self-Regulation in Responses to Risk: The Present Research

The present research works with a definition of risk suggested by Ben-Zur

form of behavior that involves potential negative consequences or losses (social,

In Study 1, we focused on sensation seeking, which is one of the primary and

Participants and Design

Materials and Procedure

Participants in both experimental conditions learned that they were to par-

received no such extra instruction about suppressing thoughts on a white bear or

Results and Discussion

Check for Effects of Gender and Age

A 2 (depletion) × 2 (gender) factorial ANOVA with sensation seeking as the

An ANCOVA revealed that participants in the high depletion condition (M =

alternative measure of risk-taking—one with more obvious and direct application

depleted participants would show higher risk-taking inclinations in the driving

Participants and Design

Materials and Procedure

To manipulate self-regulation resources we used an emotion control task,

the driver’s perspective, participants are exposed to risky situations, such as

Results and Discussion

Check for Effects of Gender and Age

A 2 (depletion) × 2 (gender) factorial ANOVA with age as a covariate yielded

Risk Acceptance on the Road

An independent samples t-test revealed that participants in the depletion con-

Scepansky, Munro, Apanovitch, & Lockhart (1998). Although ego-depletion and

Participants and Design

Seventy-four students of the University of Munich (48 women, 25 men, and

Material and Procedure

To increase the generalizability of our effect, in this study we manipu-

(participants received either ego-depletion manipulation 1 (low depletion: N =

Results and Discussion

Check for Anger as an Alternative Explanation

With regard to reported anger, we found no significant differences between

potentially elicited by the ego-depletion manipulation can explain the effect of

A one-way ANOVA revealed a marginal significant omnibus effect for exper-

than non-depleted participants (M = 2.97) (p = .079). In contrast, no significant

We argued above that recognizing and avoiding environmental risks requires

Participants and Design

Thirty-eight students from the University of Munich participated in this

Materials and Procedure

Participants in both experimental conditions were informed that they were

Results and Discussion

Check for Effects of Gender and Age

A 2 (depletion) × 2 (gender) factorial ANOVA with age as a covariate yielded

An independent samples t-test revealed that participants in the high depletion

To test whether exhaustion mediates the effect of ego-depletion on risk-

on risk-taking was mediated by feelings of exhaustion.