Ego depletion. Well, the idea that self-control takes effort, and that the ability can be cultivated, goes back at least to the ancient Greeks, and I would be unsurprised to find it in all cultures everywhere throughout human history. It seems quite likely true.

I'm not sure what value experimental psychologists have added to this piece of universal folk psychology, because of general concerns like Ioannidis' work and the extraordinarily parochial range of experimental subjects that a lot of experimental psychology uses. Ioannidis studied medical research, but psychological research has in principle all of the same hazards plus a few of its own: the WEIRD issue, and the fact that most of the entities studied do not have the same objective existence as those of medicine. You can exhibit someone's liver, but not their "self-control". I would be interested to see someone do for psychology what Ioannidis has done for medicine.

So, ego depletion, fine. Everyday phenomenon known to everyone. What of it? BTW, it's curious that although the Wikipedia article begins by describing it as "a model that relates self-control to a muscle, which can become both strengthened and fatigued", all of the experiments described there relate only to weakening. The strengthening part gets left out.

Since it's costing me 5 karma per post to post down here, I'll try and respond in advance to what I think your answer would be to my "What of it?", not because I'm concerned about the karma, but because I agree with the norm of not prolonging downvoted discussions.

If someone is overwhelmed by a crisis, well, then, they are overwhelmed by a crisis. There is no point in telling them then that they could have dealt with it better had they been better prepared to handle such things. The time to become prepared is before the crisis. Soldiers are not trained by throwing them straight into battle with equipment they know nothing about.

And yet, that side of the ego depletion metaphor is little studied.