Fishbach, A., Friedman, R., and Kruglanski, A. W. (2003). Leading us not unto temptation- Momentary allurements elicit automatic goal activation (original) (raw)
Related papers
Leading Us Not Unto Temptation: Momentary Allurements Elicit Overriding Goal Activation
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003
The present research explored the nature of automatic associations formed between short-term motives (temptations) and the overriding goals with which they interfere. Five experimental studies, encompassing several self-regulatory domains, found that temptations tend to activate such higher priority goals, whereas the latter tend to inhibit the temptations. These activation patterns occurred outside of participants' conscious awareness and did not appear to tax their mental resources. Moreover, they varied as a function of subjective goal importance and were more pronounced for successful versus unsuccessful self-regulators in a given domain. Finally, priming by temptation stimuli was found not only to influence the activation of overriding goals but also to affect goal-congruent behavioral choices.
Leading us not into temptation: Momentary allurements elicit overriding goal activation
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2003
The present research explored the nature of automatic associations formed between short-term motives (temptations) and the overriding goals with which they interfere. Five experimental studies, encompassing several self-regulatory domains, found that temptations tend to activate such higher priority goals, whereas the latter tend to inhibit the temptations. These activation patterns occurred outside of participants' conscious awareness and did not appear to tax their mental resources. Moreover, they varied as a function of subjective goal importance and were more pronounced for successful versus unsuccessful self-regulators in a given domain. Finally, priming by temptation stimuli was found not only to influence the activation of overriding goals but also to affect goal-congruent behavioral choices.
Fishbach, Friedman, Kruglanski (2003) Leading us not into temptation
The present research explored the nature of automatic associations formed between short-term motives (temptations) and the overriding goals with which they interfere. Five experimental studies, encompassing several self-regulatory domains, found that temptations tend to activate such higher priority goals, whereas the latter tend to inhibit the temptations. These activation patterns occurred outside of participants' conscious awareness and did not appear to tax their mental resources. Moreover, they varied as a function of subjective goal importance and were more pronounced for successful versus unsuccessful self-regulators in a given domain. Finally, priming by temptation stimuli was found not only to influence the activation of overriding goals but also to affect goal-congruent behavioral choices.
Self-Control in Action: Implicit Dispositions Toward Goals and Away From Temptations
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2006
Five studies examined whether, in self-control dilemmas, individuals develop an implicit disposition to approach goals and avoid temptations, psychologically as well as physically. Using a method developed by A. K. Solarz (1960; see also K. L. Duckworth, J. A. , the authors assessed the time for pulling and pushing a lever in response to goal-and temptation-related stimuli (e.g., studying and partying). The results show that individuals offset the influence of tempting activities by automatically avoiding these stimuli (faster pushing responses) and by approaching stimuli related to an overarching goal (faster pulling responses). These implicit self-control dispositions varied as a function of the magnitude of the self-control conflict, itself defined by how strongly individuals were attracted to temptations and held the longer term goal. These dispositions were further shown to play a role in successful self-control.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
Self-control can be defined as the ability to exert control over ones impulses. Currently, most research in the area relies on self-report. Focusing on attentional control processes involved in self-control, we modified a spatial selective attentional cueing task to test three domains of self-control experimentally in one task using aversive, tempting, and neutral picture-distractors. The aims of the study were (1) to investigate individual differences in the susceptibility to aversive, tempting, and neutral distraction within one paradigm and (2) to test the association of these three self-control domains to conventional measures of self-control including self-report. The final sample consisted of 116 participants. The task required participants to identify target letters "E" or "F" presented at a cued target location while the distractors were presented. Behavioral and eyetracking data were obtained during the performance of the task. High task performance was encouraged via monetary incentives. In addition to the attentional self-control task, self-reported self-control was assessed and participants performed a color Stroop task, an unsolvable anagram task and a delay of gratification task using chocolate sweets. We found that aversion, temptation, and neutral distraction were associated with significantly increased error rates, reaction times and gaze pattern deviations. Overall task performance on our task correlated with self-reported selfcontrol ability. Measures of aversion, temptation, and distraction showed moderate split-half reliability, but did not correlate with each other across participants. Additionally, participants who made a self-controlled decision in the delay of gratification task were less distracted by temptations in our task than participants who made an impulsive choice. Our individual differences analyses suggest that (1) the ability to endure aversion, resist temptations and ignore neutral distractions are independent of each other and (2) these three domains are related to other measures of self-control.
Regulatory Fit and Resisting Temptation during Goal Pursuit
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2002
Because avoiding obstacles to goal attainment is a favored means of prevention-focused self-regulation, the authors proposed that resisting tempting diversions from task completion would better fit a prevention focus than a promotion focus, thus affecting task enjoyment and performance. Whether deciphering encrypted messages (Study 1) or solving math problems (Study 2), when exposed to attractive distracting video clips, participants in a prevention focus reported greater task enjoyment than did participants in a promotion focus, whereas the reverse was true when the distracting clips were not presented. Indeed, prevention-focused participants enjoyed the tasks more when they had to resist temptation than when they did not. In Study 2, prevention-focused participants outperformed promotion-focused participants under distracting (but not nondistracting) conditions, and regression analyses suggested that task enjoyment mediated this effect. Different regulatory states thus appear to differentially equip people to deal with tempting diversions from goal attainment. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA)
Tricky treats: Paradoxical effects of temptation strength on self-regulation processes
European Journal of Social Psychology, 2011
This series of studies examined the effect of temptation strength on self-regulation processes in the context of eating behavior. Based on the critical level model, it was hypothesized that weak, rather than strong, temptations yield the most unfavorable conditions for effective self-regulation, because the negative consequences of the former are underestimated. In line with the assumptions of this model, Studies 1 and 2 showed that weak temptations inhibited the mental accessibility of the weight watching goal, in contrast to strong temptations. Study 3 showed that exposure to weak temptations lead to higher consumption in comparison to exposure to strong temptations. It is concluded that weak temptations, as compared to strong temptations, have an inhibiting effect on self-regulation processes and may therefore form a bigger threat for long-term goal attainment.
Implementation intentions as goal primes: Boosting self-control in tempting environments
European Journal of Social Psychology, 2011
People often forget their long-term strivings because their environment confronts them with attractive temptations. Previous research suggests that self-control failures can be prevented by reminding people of their higher-order goal. Therefore, we hypothesized that using implementation intentions as a tool to directly re-activate people's higher-order goal in tempting situations would effectively enhance self-control. We tested this in the domain of dieting behavior. Results demonstrated that this specific planning strategy activated the dieting goal for unsuccessful dieters when exposed to tempting food cues (Study 1) and reduced their consumption of calorically dense food across 2 weeks (Study 2) compared to those in control conditions. This suggests that preparing people to think of their higher-order goal when tempted can be used to protect ongoing goal striving. Appealing to higher-order goals potentially makes implementation intentions flexible instruments of self-regulation as this should trigger motivated behavior to reach goals and initiate various goal-instrumental actions.