Is the number 1 fact about willpower wrong? 

“The Man who says he can, and the man who says he can not.. Are both correct” ― Confucius

The more I learn about psychology, the more I see the wisdom in the "Just Do It" slogan.

ego depletion doens't exist it's called being out of mana.

Hey everyone, hope you guys are going well. Couple of things to say. Firstly, some of you have asked for Patreon so I've finally got around and set it up. Feel free to check it out. www.patreon.com/user?u=2839702&ty=h Secondly, if someone could post this video on r/videos that'd be a great help. Last time you guys did it, it actually got on the front page of r/videos so thanks so much :) Lastly and most importantly, I have a previous video called "how to increase your willpower"where I talk about ego depletion as a trick you can use. Clearly, I have since found new evidence that this trick isn't as solid as I once thought. I fully accept that I put out misinformation and would like to apologize to all you guys for letting you down. As much as I want you to trust me 100%, unfortunately I too make mistakes. So, just like how I tell you guys to be skeptical of others, I think you should be skeptical of me as well. Anyways, I'm going to go back through all my videos and see if there are any other mistakes. And on that slightly depressing note, I'll see you guys soon. Take care

This happens because institutions don't want to support research that is inconclusive, so papers that make a big "reveal" get all the attention and money.

Proving yourself wrong is the best thing a person can do...and you just did it...great !!!

For me I have found willpower to be more like a muscle. The more I use it the easier it is to use in the future. In other words if I regularly face my challenges and fears the easier it is for me to do so in the future. The more I "give myself a break" the more I start procrastinating in all facets of life. Don't know if this is true for everybody, but the "ego depletion" theory always felt sketchy to me for this reason.

Willpower? Do... Do y-you mean... Determination?

Willpower drops for sure when you're frustrated or depressed.

I imagine the people who believe in unlimited willpower also have more willpower (so harder to deplete), naturally, than those who don't. That might have biased that one study with the students.

How can ego depletion be real, if our eyes aren't real.

I'm a strong believer on self fulfilling prophesies. EVERYTHING is in your head. "Everything seems impossible until it's done"

This video in a nutshell: "There's this thing and it could be real. It also might not be real. So yeah."

Why hasn't this channel reached a million subscribers already!?

I love you man. You must be the only self-help-ish channel on RU-vid that actually gets into the science behind everything.

I have no willpower if there is no serious consequences

So ego depletion is sort of like an excuse humans have been trying to find and prove to justify their laziness and procrastinate. This video is a game changer!

Fascinating! Great work and I like that you show the publications that you've researched.

Who also clicked there because of the Pokemon battle thumbnail?

This channel is so good... I don't know why there are no new videos, but they were really appreciated and If the videos came back this channel would skyrock!

Glad I'm subscribed to you Bite Size Psych; this video has demonstrated why in spades. Thanks!

Willpower is mostly driven by the reward system. This "ego depletion" hypothesis is at a completely different level of abstraction. Willpower can be studied with things that really affects it: Food, drug, sex and simply winning. Look at those who have won at a slot machine and ask them if they intend to play again. Compare this with people who have never won at it... There is the key to willpower: reward!

It's so interesting how we try to capture the essence of how our brains work but with just the simple task of saying," maybe ego depletion really isn't real" our brains overhaul and totally reconstruct, literally being able to disprove "facts" about the mind. Love the complex thing and psychology and I really would love to do this for a living!! Your videos always give me something to think about. Love this channel, and psychology. Keep up the excellent work!!

I am actually amaze that you can do the research like you enjoy it. Can you gives us a tips how to read a research? I know it sounds silly but you are amazing.

I am so glad I found your channel. Amazing!

When I was back in China having middle school education. There was a huge amount of work load every single day yet I managed to get them done and maintain a good performance in quiz and exams. However, when I went to an American boarding school. The sudden decrease of work load was good at first but over time I start to procrastinate more and more. Wonder what is behind that.

2nd video I watched of you and so far you seem to make awesome videos. Keep going :3

I love your videos mate, keep it up. You deserve more subscriber.

Man, seriously, you're my new idol. Love your point of view. You rock!! Keep it up!!

When the thumbnail is just too perfect. Another great video guys, you're quite the inspiration to our channel. Keep doing what you do, and just the way you do it.

Great work man, keep it up. Your steadily getting more and more viewers. Ima occasionally remind myself of the unlimited willpower over the next few weeks and see if I notice changes. I don't have a hard time resisting a vice, I struggle with motivation. I've noticed I tell myself 'I'll do it tomorrow' alot almost subconciously. Whenever I catch myself doing this I do the opposite and just get the task done. I always feel amazing afterwords which encourages me to keep doing this.

If you want to lie down, lie down. If you want to do something, then do it. If you're tired, but you don't want to be tired, look into getting healthier. Your willpower is unlimited. If you want to, bad enough, you will be able to do anything.

"You will end up home alone, with a cigarette in one hand and popcorn in the other" Homer Simpson style. LOOOOOOOL

you're the one who told me it's limited wtf man

videos like this are meta af, especially with a concept such as willpower. good stuff

This video is really inspiring to me since I was stuck with ego depletion for a while. When I knew about the research, instead of examining its basis, I simply believed it is true. However, that did cause me some confusions in life. After I saw this video, I began to realize the research is not as well grounded as I believed before. So I start thinking in the opposite way. Thanks alot!

Good job man. I saw you site willpower depletion in an earlier video of yours. Very cool to see you digging out the truth and modifying your understanding! Personally, I find that self-fulfilling prophecies like this example have a huge impact. Regardless of the actual truth, I find the evidence that best supports my success, and believe whole-heartedly in it, and reap the rewards whether or not there is placebo involved. It works so well, that I am able to wholly convince myself even when I am faced with strong contrary evidence, because I know that believing it works makes it work. haha anyway good job man

Thank you!, I found about this a few days ago and around the same time i started procrastinating and using it as an excuse. I dont remember what i found first, but i have deffinetly tought about it. soo THANK YOU!

Great video as always, but that Pokemon battle analogy of willpower + resistance was just amazing.

AWESOME VIDEO!! Need more content like this.

What is this cool song you use in your videos??( at the beginning) I love all the songs you use. Please keep using them they are perfect. They make me focus and goes perfect when you start explaining something.

Yet another awesome video! I was a believer willpower is limited a long time ago but after a lot of self-development I've realized I was wrong. Logic has helped immensely in becoming a more productive person. Procrastination simply makes no sense to me anymore.

Eye opening. I'm grateful you've cited studies so that we can check them out ourselves should we wish. It seems we're back to self-fulfilling prophecies being the backbone of success. We are what we believe we are.

Hey! I just found your channel and it's fascinating... On one hand I really enjoy your content and it seems well researched. On the other hand I do not agree with some things you say in other videos I saw, especially some on success and those kind of things, but I like it when someone disagrees with me on things like these, because I can test myself if my believes hold up to that... Anyway you are doing an awesome job!

Life changing stuff bro. Keep it up!

3:10 Absolutely. There are lots of factors, but it depends on your outlook. For example, today is a Sunday, and I wanted to just lie around watching movies. But I started doing a University assignment I've been working on for a while. Now that I had begun, it was easy to continue. Before I knew it, it was 4 hours later and I finished the assignment over a week before the deadline. I find this kind of self willpower easier when it comes to work, or even housework or going to the gym. The kind of willpower that escapes me is the refraining kind - like not eating bad foods etc. Still haven't cracked that one yet..

This channel is so underrated!!

this channel is so good! holy crap reminds me of the "bad science" column by ben goldacre

The music popping in when you're making mind-blowing statements reminds me of Phoenix Wright and Vsauce. XD Anyways, another intriguing video Bite Psych!

Thx for this. I'm definitely one of those people who put to much stock in this idea and ended up "running out of will power" after performing hard tasks for a short period of time.

Hey +BiteSizePsych I (and I suspect other people too) would love to see a video on the practical implications of the ongoing wider reproducibility crisis happening in psychology/psychiatry. Love your videos - look forward to your next upload :D

Love the thumnail man !!!!

In the book, “The Habit Loop”, where I first heard of this concept of ego depletion, although the author called it something else, he said they went on to find in future studies that willpower is not just a limited resource. Rather, it’s like a muscle. You have to work hard and practice with it daily to get to another level. And it will get tired after a certain point, which is why sometimes you really feel like all you can do is collapse and watch Netflix or whatever. But, overtime, with “exercise”, you get more and more. There were also many other levels of information about this issue he explores in the book. Like that some scientists have found that belief in something bigger than yourself is the only way for a person to permanently change an ingrained habit. It’s the final ingredient (there are others) to make change complete. It’s a really interesting read. But, just like anything that says “scientists have found that”, don’t take it as gospel.

Excellent video. It will be cool if you make videos about wisdom on desition making and productivity. Thanks

I really like your videos, I think they are really instructive. I also like the background music, however it is the same in almost every video, which I think is a bit boring. It would be so cool, to put similar new songs in your next videos :D

My instinct tells me that resisting two different things in a row leaves you weak to the second, but that resisting the same willpower event twice in a row makes it easier to resist.

Great, now I know about ego depletion... thanks

Just watch anime to increase your willpower

In general, the paradigm that our psyche is some kind of hydraulic system, where what we see as "powers" drain proportionally to what challenges us seems to me like one large placebo effect - like "letting out one's frustrations/rage". The reason I say this, is that while some people insist on "deserving" unhealthy, rest, etc. after a long day of work, they seem to choose to set up establish that balance between work and play quite by themselves. Whereas in cultures where there is simply not time or money for that attitude, or where religious belief forbids it, there is no noticeable effect - people are not more stressed, but less so - they often live under greater physical strain and in less safe environments. That is to say, the highly industrialised nations with high pay and short working hours are also those strained by stress, drinking coffee, eating fast food which are all ills that come from the amount of freedom provided by wealthy societies. I'm not saying they have it worse than poor nations, but the paradigm through which they view the balance between pains (work, dieting, exercise etc.) and pleasures (TV, fast food, masturbation) is very eschewed because they think it's a tradeoff and they (or we, I'm one of them myself) go jogging to be able enjoy fast food "guilt free" or to look good naked. People are telling themselves the lie of ego depletion to justify taking breaks from.. life.

Belief controls everything.

Do watching these videos before getting up, and always thinking the current one will be the last one before I get up, and then moving on to the next video count as procrastination? 😮

What?.... Great video, this runs through my mind everyday!

awesome channel, keep going :)

THANK YOU!!!

I really do like the music but the video that the link in the description to the composer takes me to a video that doesn't exist. Any way I can get a link to the specific musical piece that plays in the video?

"Is a strenuous task tiring?" A critical factor would be whether or not you succeeded. If I work on a difficult task and after an hour I crack it I feel like trying another one. If after an hour I give up/ fail/ run out of time, I feel like going an resting.

You could relatert this directly to the placebo effect... Simply believing that something is true, for example about willpower, will enhance that effect on you, regardless of any rigorous proofs. If you look at willpower this way, when deciding what information to pay attention to, it should simply be a matter of what information will help you to believe that you can, and will, achieve your goal...

can someone sum the video up for me? I'm too lazy to finish it.

Cool video topic! I would not be surprised if it isn't such a big thing, because you often see that some people have no problems resisting things, all kinds of things even at the same time and other people have problems with almost everything even if it is just one thing. Maybe it is the other way around and resisting things actually helps you build up to be better at it? Like a skill you can level. Or maybe it has to do with the way you approach resisting something. It could be that people that have trouble resisting things just use the wrong cooping skills. (wrong for them specific) I know from my own experience that when I stopped thinking about the things I should not do (should resist) and I started to think about things I wanted to do, I got better at resisting 'bad' things and doing the 'good' things.

this channel is why youtube is a good place

0:43 Labeling the axes is so important, I have no idea what the y-axis is showing

This is the first time I've ever heard of this concept in my life, but I've sure as hell felt it before. I think the most common situation is having a SUPER stressful day and expending tons of energy to get through it without having a total meltdown, then going off and binging on food, spending, whatever because you simply don't care anymore at that point. I don't know if that's really the same thing you're talking about, but it's what this video reminded me of, anyway. Which of course raises a question: How can it be a self-fulfilling prophesy if people who've never heard of this phenomenon have still experienced it? Though I'll readily grant that different people will have been raised differently, and that probably has a lot to do with it as well. Even if you were not clearly instructed with regards to this type of psychological thinking in your youth, you would still pick up on certain things which might impact your willpower over time...perhaps in relation to the willpower you see in family members or the kind of encouragement you get growing up. In the end, I expect this is just another situation entirely too complex to nail down, but it's definitely an interesting topic of discussion.

For what I have experience when you are being successful at a task because of your willpower you usually want to continue being successful as you have invested time and willpower in the task, however; if you fail it can take no to a lot of time to try the task again.

whenever you feel like you have hit the limit of your abilities, push harder and you'll find the abilities hidden withen. Thats one of the things i love the most about doing exercises, when i feel like i cxant go anymore, then i push, and find that i am stilll able to do more reps than i thought i can. seems like this applies here, when they believed that their willpower is unlimited, they just tapped into more resources of it. limits are imaginary walls we put ahead of us, so only running straight into it would convince us that they're just images and they dont exist! thumbs up for worthy comments to be read

Was the thumbnail a small nod to how it has now been 20 years since pokémon came out in japan?

How do you find the will power to read research papers? I'm a pretty bright student but I find them so dull to read only after going through a couple.

I think the larger question here is the possible effect of publication bias as a likely factor in the study/studies showing "depletion" as a hypothetical determinant.That is as much an unsupported assumption as is the acceptance of the null finding studies as somehow more valid than that being criticized. ~ Which, if any, of these studies have been published under peer review? What specific criticisms, supported by evidence, have made made about any of them? As to the validity of _any_ of these studies or how might "depletion" affect "willpower," nothing in this video supports any sort of conclusions, for or against. ~ Even the number of studies drawing either conclusion is not relevant, as science is not a democratic process. Conclusions depend solely on _proven_ validity, which, itself, is not a factor in the implications suggested by this video. In plain terms, the video's premise is not valid.

Background music is good. where to find it?anyone?

amazing content

Hey Bite Size Psych, So what would you recommend about will power then? In the video you stated that people have will power that could be depleted but you also stated that certain studies show that will power depletion is non-existence or there is no proof of it. For someone who is trying to improve themselves and not procrastinate and doing their best to accomplish their goals how should they approach the topic of will power? Should they approach knowing that it could be depleted, or approach knowing that it could be unlimited and there is no reason to procrastinate? Should someone just stop thinking about will power and just focus completing goals? This is a good video, I like both sides to the arguments, but what advise would you give on this topic. How should someone approach it? Also what's your take on discipline? I have an article that is really good I will give you a link to it soon, I would like your take on that article. Again good job on the video.

I don't believe there is any such thing as _ego depletion_ or _will power_. People may believe in whatever they want to believe, but the key to achieving your goals is all about the effort you place in personal discipline.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe ego depletion (losing focus) can occur from a lack of sleep, too much study, or hunger. Maybe actively resisting things is not one of those ways, but what about a cause-effect coming from the other direction? Wouldn't being ego depleted effect executive function and thus willpower? I find the explanation of people eating cookies and ice cream because they're exhausted to be quite compelling -- not because willpower kicked in and failed but because willpower never showed up to fight because we were doing it through mindless habit.

I love this channel

How does this relate to depression and general anxiaty, or other related neurodivergent states? Like, dealing with depression, having to deal with energy depletion after a few tasks was the hardest parts of dealing with things

If the parts about publication bias and the myriad problems with popular science reporting struck a chord with you, I highly recommend you read Bad Science by Ben Goldacre. Talks about this heavily later on in the book. The audiobook version was also fantastically narrated if that's more your style.

You should add the patreon link in the description :D

What about the MTBI personality types P vs J?

people are more fatiged at the end of the day, you dont use will power. if anything it only strengthens as you persist through fatigue. gyms are great for this. some say working out at the beggining of the day sets them up for success some say they dont want to get back home tired. its no big deal.

great vid

Green Lantern comics say that Hope will Supercharge Willpower. Not much science in that but it sure works for me, in Brightest Day and Blackest night.

Where's the link to Patreon?

what's the background music

I feel like a Superman already

How does "Positive Reinforcement" effect "Ego Depletion?" The test where the subject was given a biased questionnaires, could the subjects that received the more positive questionnaires be said to have received a form of positive reinforcement?

Is there a reason why ALL of the sources links in the description are broken or lead nowhere?

good one sir

The only thing I have a limited reserve of is patience.

Publication bias can also be seen in studies linking violent video games to violence.

Thanks for objectivity. I smelled right from the start that this theory was weird...

At 2:35 what is the paper that was labeled "Trim and fill (2015)"?