Studies like this should immediately make one remember something about psychology. The replication crisis has devastated any credibility in psychology. And soci

Studies like this should immediately make one remember something about psychology. The replication crisis has devastated any credibility in psychology. And social psychology, as this study is part of, is the worst hit. The replication rate for social psychology studies is currently hovering around 25% [1]. And unlike psychology studies, that result can and has been replicated. What that means is that if you see any social psychology study - you would be much more accurately informed if you assumed that what it 'discovered' was false. So back to this study. Let's imagine some alternative hypothesis. People tend to overestimate the representativeness of their own personal experience. People extrapolate their own personal experience, which in turn is going to be driven by their own behaviors/views/etc, to much wider segments of the population than they actually apply to. If somebody engages in substantial drinking, they're going to overestimate the normality of that behavior. And similar for those that engage in minimal drinking. And all of this is even more true when you're talking about young college aged kids. This hypothesis also fully explains otherwise inexplicable 'discoveries' of this study. For instance the study found no connection between the drinking habits of the dorms people lived in and their own independent usage. That contradicts their hypothesis but it was, of course, simply hand-waved away. But the real problem with this hypothesis is that it doesn't lead to new research, doesn't sound exciting, and likely would be difficult to publish. Publication generally entails novelty, and I'm certain this effect has been extensively studied and reported upon elsewhere. So instead we get clickbait under the guise of science. [1] - https://replicationindex.com/2018/12/28/socpsytb-ego-depletion/ https://replicationindex.com/2018/12/28/socpsytb-ego-depleti...