[2][3] Baumeister then taught at Case Western Reserve University from 1979 to 2003, serving as a professor of psychology and later liberal arts.

[4] He later worked at Florida State University as the Francis Eppes Eminent Scholar and head of the social psychology graduate program.

[8] Baumeister's research focuses on six themes: self control, decision-making, the need to belong and interpersonal rejection, human sexuality, irrational and self-destructive behavior, and free will.

[18] Further research by Baumeister and colleagues has led to the development of the Strength Model of self-control, which likens this ego depletion to the tiredness that comes from physically exerting a muscle.

He also describes this research in a book, Willpower, authored with former New York Times journalist John Tierney.

Baumeister also plans to run his own pre-registered replication using a protocol that is more in line with most ego-depletion experiments.

He has listed the major aspects that make up free will as self-control, rational, intelligent choice, planful behavior, and autonomous initiative.

Research by Baumeister and colleagues (principally Kathleen Vohs) has shown that disbelief in free will can lead people to act in ways that are harmful to themselves and society, such as cheating on a test, increased aggression, decreased helpfulness, lower achievement levels in the workplace, and possible barriers to beating addiction.

[31][32][33] Baumeister coined the term "erotic plasticity", which is the extent to which one's sex drive can be shaped by cultural, social and situational factors.

[34][35] He argues that women have high plasticity, meaning that their sex drive can more easily change in response to external pressures.