Figure 4. Ego-depletion decreases cooperative behavior among naïve subjects.

Results of Study 2, restricted to naïve subjects (N = 231). Depleted participants are significantly more selfish than non-depleted ones. Linear regression predicting “cooperation” as a function of a dummy variable, named “depletion”, which takes value 1 if a subject participated in the depletion condition, and 0 if the subject participated in the no-depletion condition, confirms that there is a significant and negative effect of “depletion” on “cooperation” with (F(4,227) = 1.858, coeff = −0.114, p = 0.041, r² = 0.032) and without (F(1,230 = 4.088, coeff = −0.112, p = 0.044, r² = 0.017) control on sex, age, and education. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean.