HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--It is the time of the year when people resolve to improve their lives — eat better, exercise more, spend smart, sleep well. Yet despite such good intentions, it can be hard to stick to resolutions. Temptation is everywhere. Desires often sidetrack people from their goals. No wonder Jan. 17 is known as Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day.
Now, a new study suggests consumers may be able to curb desires by simply postponing them indefinitely.
While conventional methods of resisting temptation have focused on harnessing will power, abstinence and denial, C. T. Bauer College of Business Professor Vanessa M. Patrick and co-author Nicole L. Mead of Erasmus University suggest there may be a better way to manage the pangs of desire.
Writing in the January issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Mead and Patrick argue that by postponing temptations to an unspecific time in the future, consumers can make longer lasting behavioral changes.
An example: Imagine yourself walking by an ice-cream store and feeling the urge to indulge. A common response would be to deprive yourself. Alternatively, you could postpone by saying: “Sure, I can have ice-cream, but maybe later.”
“If we postpone consumption at peak desire, in the heat of the moment, we are less likely to want to consume later,’’ Patrick, a consumer psychologist and Bauer College professor of marketing, says of the research.
“What we theorized,” Patrick said, “is that saying we can have it later not only helps self-regulate in the present, but also serves as a signal to our future selves that says: ‘I didn’t really want ice-cream that much.’ This helps us manage desires over the longer term.”
“What’s nice about this particular method of self-regulation is that we make inferences about our desire and learn from our own behavioral response to temptation.”
It is important that the decision to postpone be unspecific. This research shows that if a person postpones the temptation to a specific time, then they are likely to follow through with that decision. “If you say, ‘I will eat chocolate at dinner,’ you will eat chocolate at dinner,” Patrick says.
The professors believe the research, based on four experiments conducted at Erasmus University, can be a powerful tool for people who want to change their habits for the longer term.
“It is a behavioral insight that helps you achieve your goals and self-regulate, but it’s also a form of compassionate self-control. It’s not self-deprivation. It’s not this terrible feeling of ‘I can’t have this. I really wish I could, but I can’t.’ At some point, that breaks down because we can’t keep on constraining ourselves,” Patrick added.
Patrick believes the paper — “The Taming of Desire: Unspecific Postponement Reduces Desire for and Consumption of Postponed Temptations” — moves the needle in a positive, more self-compassionate direction.
A Professor of Marketing and the Director of Bauer’s Doctoral Programs, she is a leading expert in consumer psychology and studies “the two sides of the pleasure coin.” Her research investigates both the pull of pleasure (in terms of art, aesthetics and luxury) and the strategies and interventions by which consumers can manage their appetites for pleasure. Her work has appeared in leading consumer research and psychology journals and has been covered by ABC News, Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes and NPR.
Mead is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing Management at the Rotterdam School of Management at Erasmus University in the Netherlands.
The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology — a highly regarded, peer-reviewed scientific publication — is published monthly by the American Psychological Association.
About the University of Houston
The University of Houston, Texas’ premier metropolitan research and teaching institution is home to more than 40 research centers and institutes and sponsors more than 300 partnerships with corporate, civic and governmental entities. UH, the most diverse research university in the country, stands at the forefront of education, research and service with more than 35,000 students.
About the C. T. Bauer College of Business
The C. T. Bauer College of Business has been in operation for more than 60 years at the University of Houston main campus. Through its five academic departments, the college offers a full-range of undergraduate, masters and doctoral degrees in business. The Bauer College is fully accredited by the AACSB International – the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. In August 2000, Houston business leader and philanthropist Charles T. (Ted) Bauer endowed the College of Business with a $40 million gift. In recognition of his generosity, the college was renamed the C. T. Bauer College of Business.
