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Recalling Past Temptations: An Information-Processing Perspective on the Dynamics of Self-Control
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This research investigates how consumers respond to food-related temptations as a function of recalling their own behavior when faced with a similar temptation in the recent past. Bringing together different streams of relevant research, we propose and find that chronically nonimpulsive individuals display behavioral consistency over time-resisting (succumbing) when they recall having resisted (succumbed) earlier. In contrast, impulsive individuals show a switching pattern, resisting current temptations if they recall having succumbed, and vice versa. These propositions are supported by convergent results across four experiments involving real eating behaviors, response latencies, and hypothetical choices. Implications for consumer welfare are discussed and possible interventions are suggested. (c) 2008 by JOURNAL OF CONSUMER RESEARCH, Inc..
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... Prior research on goal pursuit across multiple decisions has shown that sufficient progress on a self-control goal due to a prior decision or behavior can lower the activation of the self-control goal, and increase the activation of a conflicting goal (Fishbach and Dhar, 2005;Shah, 2005;Laran and Janiszewski, 2009). For example, when a past instance of restraint is salient, people low in self-control (e.g., impulsive consumers) tend to indulge themselves, and this is due to lowered accessibility of the self-control goal (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2008). Applying this goal accessibility account to the current instance, the act of choosing a virtue in the choice stage might decrease the accessibility of the self-control goal for unrestrained eaters, presumably due to their weak interest in controlling food decisions-thereby causing them to eat greater quantities in the consumption stage. ...
... p < 0.001) and the two-factor structure was shown 10 Detailed results of the analysis with brief self-control scale and consumer impulsivity scale are not reported here for they are no longer the focus of this study and there were no significant effects with these scales. and Mcconnell, 2004;Mukhopadhyay et al., 2008). As a measure of relative accessibility of a target goal compared to neutral words, we constructed facilitation scores by subtracting the average response time for words of the target category from the average response time for neutral words (Anderson et al., 1998;Leibold and Mcconnell, 2004;Förster et al., 2005;Finkelstein and Fishbach, 2010). ...
... Prior research has found that exerting self-control, such as by choosing a virtue over a vice, can influence subsequent behavior (Baumeister et al., 1998;Dewall et al., 2007;Gal and Liu, 2011). Other researchers have addressed the question of goal accessibility across consumption episodes (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2008;May and Irmak, 2014). However, no research has looked at how the very act of choosing a virtue over a vice affects the accessibility of the self-control goal within a same consumption episode and governs whether self-control persists or gets lost in the post-choice intake stage. ...
Observed choices between options representing a relative vice and a relative virtue have commonly been used as a measure of eating self-control in the literature. However, even though self-control operations may manifest across the post-choice consumption stage, either similarly or in different ways from the choice stage, most prior research has ignored consumption quantity of the chosen option. While the behavior of choosing a virtue instead of a vice does manifest self-control, we examine how this plays out in post-choice consumption. Specifically, we find that when processing resources are limited, after having chosen a virtue food, unrestrained eaters ironically consumed greater quantities and therefore more calories than restrained eaters (Study 1). This reflects more persistent self-control in the post-choice consumption stage among restrained eaters than unrestrained eaters, and occurs because choosing a virtue lowers accessibility of the self-control goal among unrestrained eaters relative to restrained eaters (Study 2), thereby increasing intake of the virtuous food. In contrast, subsequent to having chosen a vice, unrestrained eaters and restrained eaters did not show any such difference in intake (Study 1) or goal accessibility (Study 2). Together, these results reveal that persistence of self-control in the post-choice consumption stage depends on individuals’ dietary restraint and their initial exercise of self-control in the choice decision. The mere act of choosing a virtue satisfies unrestrained eaters’ self-control goal and leads to increased food intake, whereas the same act keeps the same goal activated among restrained eaters who reduce intake of the chosen virtue. Put differently, persistent self-control across choice and quantity decisions is observed only when those with a dietary goal show successful self-control enactment in the choice stage. We therefore highlight that the operation of self-control can be dynamic within a consumption episode, and thus, choice and post-choice quantity are both informative of self-control.
... Impulsive behavior conditioned to self-control tends to result in more indulgent future choices when faced with an opportunity for indulgence (Mukhopadhyay, Sengupta, & Ramanathan, 2008;May & Irmak, 2014;May & Irmak, 2018;Laran, 2020). Research suggests that individuals will make indulgent choices when they perceive sufficient progress towards achieving a goal (Fishbach & Dhar Impulsivity and Memory Distortion: An Analysis of Perceived Goal Importance ...
... n.1, janeiro/março 2022BASEv.19, n.1, janeiro/março 2005Laran, Janiszewski, & Salerno, 2019;Mukhopadhyay et al., 2008;Schwartz, 2018) and when faced with goal conflicting (May & Irmak, 2014;May & Irmak, 2018). ...
... As a result, highly impulsive consumers often experience conflicts between short-term pleasure and long-term self-regulation goals (Mukhopadhyay et al., 2008). Thus, highly impulsive people are more likely to distort past memories than those who are less impulsive (May & Irmak, 2014). ...
This study proposes that high perceived goal importance in purchasing
means highly impulsive people do not significantly distort their past memories when
faced with an indulgent choice in the present, generating self-control in the future as
opposed to indulgent behavior. In two studies, this effect is demonstrated in the
domains of eating and spending. Altogether, 282 people participated, with priming
activation and scales being applied. The results indicate that a high and low degree of
perceived goal importance influences memory distortion in favor of indulgent
behavior. Impulsive people tend to distort the number of calories in food less when
they perceive the goal of eating a chocolate truffle as important. However, study 2
found that consumers who used credit cards distort the real value of items more when the perceived importance of the purchase is low. The reverse is also true. This research contributes to studies on memory distortion, impulsivity and perceived goal
importance. The finding that impulsivity declines in people with high perceived goal
importance at the moment of purchase may aid in self-control and contribute to the
development of strategies to curb impulsivity. People get into debt not only in
moments of high impulsivity, but also when the item purchased is deemed to be less
important. Thus, organizations can raise awareness among consumers that it is not only large purchases that trigger debt in the population.
... Unsurprisingly, impulsive individuals more readily engage in impulse buying (e.g., Peck and Childers 2006;Van Steenburg and Naderi 2020). Conversely, consumers with a non-impulsive personality trait have more self-control and plan their actions (Mukhopadhyay, Sengupta, and Ramanathan 2008); thus they rarely make impulse purchases. According to a recent study, individuals with an impulsivity score below the median are considered low impulsive (Puri 1996;Ramanathan and Menon 2006). ...
... In comparison, non-impulsive consumers have greater self-regulation and are more likely to stick to their plan (Mukhopadhyay, Sengupta, and Ramanathan 2008), primarily suppressing their impulse buying (Upadhye et al. 2021). Therefore, it has been challenging for practice management to increase the consumption of non-impulsives, yet research in this area remains insufficient. ...
... Furthermore, by introducing the perception-behavior link, this research further explains the unconscious approach to the impulse buying behavior of non-impulsive tourists. Unlike impulsive consumers, people with a non-impulsive personality trait exhibit more self-control (March and Woodside 2005;Mukhopadhyay, Sengupta, and Ramanathan 2008). They prefer buying for utilitarian needs (Suher and Hoyer 2020), and they are more likely to keep to a budget and not make impulse purchases (Baumeister 2002). ...
It is of commercial interest to stimulate non-impulsive consumers to spend more. Tourism provides a promising context to extend this research to the impulse buying of people who are non-impulsive in daily life. By utilizing two experiments and two post-trip surveys, this study reveals how the time pressure encountered in a tourism environment influences tourists’ impulse buying. The results show a special impact of time pressure in tourism settings, whereby time pressure significantly increases the impulse buying of the non-impulsive tourists; this effect is lacking for impulsive tourists. The rarity perception of current experience, activated implicitly rather than at a conscious level, leads non-impulsive consumers to engage in a rare behavior (i.e., impulse buying) through an unconscious link between perception and behavior. Conclusions reflect the particularity of tourism and provide guidance for practice after COVID-19.
... . 자기통제에 대한 기존 연구 에 따르면, 소비자들은 때때로 유혹옵션(tempting options)을 소비할지 고민하는 자기통제 딜레마(selfcontrol dilemma) 상황에 놓인다 (Park and Yi, 2022 (May and Irmak, 2014;Mukhopadhyay et al., 2008) 혹은 미래의 소비 행동이 현재의 소비 행동에 미치는 영향을 살펴보았다 (박지혜, 이유재, 2023;Park and Yi, 2022 (Goldsmith et al., 2007;Huber et al., 2008 (Dhar and Simonson, 1999;Park and Yi, 2022), 혹은 먼저 이루어진 소비 행동이 이후에 발 생하는 소비 행동에 반대되는 방향으로 영향을 미친 다는 주장으로 불일치 효과(inconsistency effect) 를 제시하였다 (Fishbach and Dhar, 2005;Khan and Dhar, 2006). 예를 들어, Dhar and Simonson(1999) (Goldsmith et al., 2007;Huber et al., 2008 (Gray, 1987;Ramanathan and Menon, 2006;Sengupta and Zhou, 2007). ...
This study investigates how impulsivity and the recall of past or future indulgent behaviors type influence self-control decisions. The findings of Study 1 demonstrate that individuals low in impulsivity exhibit stronger self-control when recalling past indulgences compared to future ones. However, indulgence type did not influence self-control for those high in impulsivity. Study 2 reveals that guilt mediates the interactive effect of impulsivity and indulgence type on self-control. These results contribute to the understanding of consumer behavior by highlighting the role of impulsivity and indulgence recall in self-control decisions. Implications for marketers
and consumers are discussed.
... Nonimpulsive consumers tend to exhibit a consistent self-regulatory behavior, while impulsive consumers frequently oscillate between self-restraint and succumbing to temptation. However, prompting impulsive consumers to recall the reasons for their behavior in past selfregulation helps encourage consistency (Mukhopadhyay, Sengupta, & Ramanathan, 2008). When consumers are in a state of self-regulatory depletion, optimism might drive anticipatory purchasing based on how favorable an outcome is expected to be. ...
In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in consumer self-regulation research. This field is important for the welfare of consumers and society because of self-regulation’s role in in preventing problems including public health issues, such as obesity, deterioration of the natural environment, and revolving credit card debt. This systematic literature review uses a framework-based approach to present an organized and synthesized understanding of this field. The three factors that most frequently appear as the antecedents of consumer self-regulation are trait self-control, self-regulatory depletion, and chronic regulatory focus. Self-regulation has been the most studied regarding food and financial decision-making. The theory of self-regulatory strength model or self-control depletion model have been the main frameworks for most studies. This study proposes a research agenda based on identified opportunities and gaps, and offers guidelines for practitioners and policy makers to enable them to help consumers in improving self-regulation.
Decisions are rarely made in isolation. Instead, deliberation often occurs in the context of prior related choices. This article finds that goal‐inconsistent foregone alternatives, options that were previously considered but not chosen, shape how consumers subsequently pursue their goals. Going beyond previous research on foregone alternatives and consumer satisfaction, the current research suggests that how consumers mentally construe foregone goal‐inconsistent alternatives impacts how they evaluate their prior goal‐consistent choices, which will, in turn, impact their motivation to continue making goal‐consistent choices. Specifically, we find the foregone alternative diversity effect: consumers who consider having previously foregone diverse (vs. similar) goal‐inconsistent alternatives in favor of a goal‐consistent action then believe that they have made a greater sacrifice, which had more of an impact on their focal goal. As a result, they are then more likely to subsequently make goal‐consistent choices. Our findings hold across different types of goals (exercise: Study 1, healthy eating: Studies 2, 3, and 5, weight loss: Study 4), and both real and hypothetical choices. We also identify theoretically motivated boundary conditions for the observed effect of considering foregone alternatives.
The current research examines how the vividness of food depictions affects consumers' consumption expectations of indulgent food items. Through three studies, we found that the level of motivation to be healthy plays a crucial role in determining how vividness impacts their consumption expectations of indulgent food items. Specifically, when consumers are less motivated to be healthy, vividness increases their consumption expectations due to increased attention‐driven involvement with the food information. On the other hand, when consumers are motivated to be healthy, vividness is assumed to increase goal conflict, leading to reduced consumption expectations. Importantly, our research also found that the joint effect of vividness and health motivations on consumption expectations is attenuated when the indulgent food items contain healthy ingredients.
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role of volitive desire in self-control toward temptations. It extends prior research on the role of prudence in temptation resistance by empirically demonstrating that prudence bolsters self-control toward food temptations by lowering volitive desire motivation toward temptation enactment.
Design/methodology/approach
This study consists of a 2 (food type: temptation vs goal-congruent) × 2 (prudence level: low vs high) between-subjects quasi-experimental design. Hypothesis tests were conducted by using analysis of covariance and ordinary least squares regression-based moderated mediation analysis.
Findings
The results show that high-prudence participants experienced lower volitive desire toward eating the temptation food option than low-prudence participants. Consequently, high- (vs low-) prudence participants reported significantly weaker eating intentions toward the temptation food option. Moreover, volitive desire significantly mediated the effect of prudence level on intentions to eat the temptation food option.
Research limitations/implications
The study contains methodological limitations. First, the study operationalizes volitive desire as “non-appetitive, instrumental reasons for eating or not eating the food,” yet in some contexts volitive desire can include appetitive reasons. Second, the procedure consisted of presenting participants with only a goal-consistent or temptation food option, rather than with both, which is more realistic. The study also focuses on a single goal context, healthy eating, to the exclusion of other contexts associated with consumer self-control. Additionally, the appetitive and volitive desire self-report measure method produced flawed ratings, requiring us to use the open-ended responses as this study’s dependent variable. Finally, this study does not directly test the extent of prudence-driven deliberation about temptation enactment consequences.
Practical implications
Social marketing campaigns can encourage low prudence consumers to strengthen this behavioral trait by performing beneficial, slightly to moderately challenging utilitarian tasks (e.g. making one’s bed each morning, flossing one’s teeth every evening, etc.) that involve exercising self-control on a regular basis. Social marketing ads can also appeal to the consequence-vigilance of high prudence consumers by increasing the salience of consequences of self-control failures in behaviors related to social issues such as pollution, drinking and driving, smoking and recreational drug use. An additional implication is that marketers of health goal-related products and services could segment the market based on trait prudence and target high-prudence consumers with ads that increase the salience of consequences associated with not using the company’s health product or service or the consequences of using the competition’s products or services.
Social implications
Consumers can improve their well-being by exercising self-control consistently in low to moderately challenging tasks, which boosts their prudence. High-prudence consumers can intentionally focus on volitive motives when faced with temptations to ensure effective self-control.
Originality/value
This research examines the role of volitive desire as the process by which trait prudence affects intentions toward temptation options, which extends prior research on the role of prudence in self-control for temptations (Puri, 1996). This framework builds on the philosophy of action perspective on desire and shows that trait prudence can predict temptation enactment intentions through the mediating role of volitive desire. Thus, the findings illuminate the motivational mechanism by which prudence bolsters self-control in the face of temptation: volitive desire.
What motivates consumers to avoid unhealthy behaviors (e.g., consuming sugar, energy drinks, and fast food)? Traditional interventions and lay intuition suggest that to motivate themselves, consumers can consider the negative long-term health consequences of their decisions. Yet, consumers still struggle to avoid unhealthy behaviors. Seven experiments (N = 4,021) offer a different approach. We find that considering short-term costs of unhealthy behaviors (e.g., irritability or indigestion after eating sugar) better curbs these behaviors than considering long-term costs or no costs. We theorize that short-term costs are more effective at reducing unhealthy behavior because they are more strongly associated with the act of consumption, both in terms of immediate timing and perceived likelihood of costs occurring. As such, short-term costs are better at undermining the reason for consuming unhealthily: anticipated enjoyment of the consumption experience. We test this process by (1) demonstrating mediation via increased association strength and subsequent decreased anticipated enjoyment, (2) manipulating the association strength between consumption and costs (i.e., same cost realized sooner vs. later), and (3) demonstrating moderation via consumers’ goal for eating unhealthily. These results identify a powerful, but underutilized self-regulation strategy—emphasizing short-term costs of unhealthy consumption—with implications for consumers and marketers.
Wir haben es in diesem Kapitel mit den Klassikern des Lernens zu tun: Pawlow und Skinner. Dabei schließen wir uns der These an, dass sich Pawlow geirrt hat. Der Hund hatte keinen Reflex, sondern eine Erwartungshaltung, und hat, weil er aktiv an seinem Essen interessiert war, gesabbert. Die Lerntheorie von Skinner ist kaum zu hinterfragen. Wir lernen durch Belohnung. Wir lernen aber auch durch Beobachtung, ohne eine Handlung selber ausgeführt zu haben. Das zeigt uns Bandura. Außerdem lernen wir den Ansatz von Hull kennen, wonach sich das Reaktionspotenzial einer Person auf einen Reiz aus einer Verknüpfung von Gewohnheit, Bedürfnisstärke, Reizstärke und sozialem Druck ergibt.
Restrained and unrestrained subjects (n = 24) were weighed daily for a 6-week period and again 6 months later in order to determine whether dietary restraint or relative body weight is the better predictor of weight variability. Restraint was a significantly better predictor of naturally occurring weight fluctuations than was relative body weight. Furthermore, the 2 factors of the Restraint Scale, Concern for Dieting and Weight Fluctuations, were both significant predictors of weight variability. We propose that exaggerated weight fluctuations are not a natural concomitant of higher body weight but possibly the consequence of a cycle of dieting and overeating, which seems to preclude actual weight loss.
In this article, we attempt to distinguish between the properties of moderator and mediator variables at a number of levels. First, we seek to make theorists and researchers aware of the importance of not using the terms moderator and mediator interchangeably by carefully elaborating, both conceptually and strategically, the many ways in which moderators and mediators differ. We then go beyond this largely pedagogical function and delineate the conceptual and strategic implications of making use of such distinctions with regard to a wide range of phenomena, including control and stress, attitudes, and personality traits. We also provide a specific compendium of analytic procedures appropriate for making the most effective use of the moderator and mediator distinction, both separately and in terms of a broader causal system that includes both moderators and mediators. (46 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Publisher Summary Individuals come to “know” their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behavior and/ or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs. Thus, to the extent that internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or uninterpretable, the individual is functionally in the same position as an outside observer, an observer who must necessarily rely upon those same external cues to infer the individual's inner states. This chapter traces the conceptual antecedents and empirical consequences of these propositions, attempts to place the theory in a slightly enlarged frame of reference, and clarifies just what phenomena the theory can and cannot account for in the rapidly growing experimental literature of self-attribution phenomena. Several experiments and paradigms from the cognitive dissonance literature are amenable to self-perception interpretations. But precisely because such experiments are subject to alternative interpretations, they cannot be used as unequivocal evidence for self-perception theory. The reinterpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena and other self-perception phenomena have been discussed. The chapter highlights some differences between self-perception and interpersonal perception and shift of paradigm in social psychology. It discusses some unsolved problems, such as the conceptual status of noncognitive response classes and the strategy of functional analysis.
Context The prevalence of obesity and overweight increased in the United States
between 1978 and 1991. More recent reports have suggested continued increases
but are based on self-reported data.Objective To examine trends and prevalences of overweight (body mass index [BMI]
≥25) and obesity (BMI ≥30), using measured height and weight data.Design, Setting, and Participants Survey of 4115 adult men and women conducted in 1999 and 2000 as part
of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally
representative sample of the US population.Main Outcome Measure Age-adjusted prevalence of overweight, obesity, and extreme obesity
compared with prior surveys, and sex-, age-, and race/ethnicity–specific
estimates.Results The age-adjusted prevalence of obesity was 30.5% in 1999-2000 compared
with 22.9% in NHANES III (1988-1994; P<.001).
The prevalence of overweight also increased during this period from 55.9%
to 64.5% (P<.001). Extreme obesity (BMI ≥40)
also increased significantly in the population, from 2.9% to 4.7% (P = .002). Although not all changes were statistically significant,
increases occurred for both men and women in all age groups and for non-Hispanic
whites, non-Hispanic blacks, and Mexican Americans. Racial/ethnic groups did
not differ significantly in the prevalence of obesity or overweight for men.
Among women, obesity and overweight prevalences were highest among non-Hispanic
black women. More than half of non-Hispanic black women aged 40 years or older
were obese and more than 80% were overweight.Conclusions The increases in the prevalences of obesity and overweight previously
observed continued in 1999-2000. The potential health benefits from reduction
in overweight and obesity are of considerable public health importance.
The theory outlined in the present chapter adopts a cognitive approach to motivation. In the pages that follow we describe a research program premised on the notion that the cognitive treatment affords conceptual and methodological advantages enabling new insights into problems of motivated action, self-regulation and self-control. We begin by placing our work in the broader historical context of social psychological theorizing about motivation and cognition. We then present our theoretical notions and trace their implications for a variety of psychological issues including activity-experience, goal-commitment, choice, and substitution. The gist of the chapter that follows describes our empirical research concerning a broad range of phenomena informed by the goal-systemic analysis. Motivation Versus Cognition, or Motivation as Cognition Motivation versus cognition: the “separatist program. ” Social psychological theories have often treated motivation as separate from cognition, and have often approached it in a somewhat static manner. The separatism of the “motivation versus cognition ” approach was manifest in several major formulations and debates. Thus, for example, the dissonance versus self-perception debate (Bem, 1972) pitted against each other motivational (i.e., dissonance) versus cognitive (i.e., self-perception) explanations of attitude change phenomena. A similar subsequent controversy pertained to the question of whether a motivational explanation of biased causal attributions in terms of ego-defensive tendencies (cf. Kelley, 1972) is valid, given the alternative possibility of a purely cognitive explanation (Miller & Ross, 1975). The separatism of the “motivation versus cognition ” approach assigned distinct functions to motivational and cognitive variables. This is apparent in major social psychological notions of persuasion, judgment or impression formation. For instance, in the popular dual-mode theories of
The intention-superiority effect is the finding that response latencies are faster for items related to an uncompleted intention as compared with materials that have no associated intentionality. T. Goschke and J. Kuhl(1993) used recognition latency for simple action scripts to document this effect. We used a lexical-decision task to replicate that shorter latencies were associated with uncompleted intentions as compared with neutral materials (Experiments 1 and 3). Experiments 2-4, however, demonstrated that latencies were longer for completed scripts as compared with neutral materials. In Experiment 3, shorter latencies were also obtained for partially completed scripts. The results are discussed in terms of the activation and inhibition that may guide behavior, as well as how these results may inform theories of prospective memory.
Addresses fundamental self-regulatory issues by considering the basic ways in which goals can differ from each other not only in terms of their motivational contents but also in terms of their significant cognitive properties. To integrate these differing goal qualities under a general perspective, this chapter adopts a systematic approach in assuming that an individual's goals and means can be viewed as a network of cognitive associations endowed with specific structural properties. The authors begin by portraying the fundamental characteristics of goal systems: how goals inter-connect with other goals and with their attainment means and what significant configurations result from these associations. In doing so, they outline a number of characteristics of goal-systems such as their potential for implicit activation, their contextual dependence, and the transfer of properties that may occur between their components. This chapter then considers the consequences of goal systems for various self-regulatory phenomena including goal commitment, choice, substitution, and intrinsic motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)