Department of Marketing Management, Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University.
Department of Marketing, Bauer College of Business, University of Houston.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2016 Jan;110(1):20-35. doi: 10.1037/a0039946.
The present investigation began with the conjecture that people may do better by saying "some other time" instead of "no, not ever" in response to temptations. Drawing from learning theories, we hypothesized that people interpret unspecific postponement ("I can have it some other time") as a signal that they do not strongly value the postponed temptation. In this way, unspecific postponement may reduce desire for and consumption of postponed temptations, both in the present moment and over time. Four experiments tested those hypotheses. A multiphase study using the free-choice paradigm supported the learning account for the effects of postponement: unspecific postponement reduced immediate desire for a self-selected temptation which in turn statistically accounted for diminished consumption during the week after the manipulation--but only when postponement was induced, not when it was imposed (Experiment 1). Supporting the hypothesis that unspecific but not specific postponement connotes weak valuation, only unspecific postponement reduced attention to (Experiment 2) and consumption of (Experiment 3) the postponed temptation. Additionally, unspecific postponement delayed consumption primarily among those who were highly motivated to forgo consumption of the temptation (Experiment 3). A final multiphase experiment compared the effectiveness of unspecific postponement to the classic self-control mechanism of restraint, finding that unspecific postponement (vs. restraint) reduced consumption of the temptation in the heat of the moment and across 1 week postmanipulation (Experiment 4). The current research provides novel insight into self-control facilitation, the modification of desire, and the differential effects of unspecific and specific intentions for reducing unwanted behavior.
本研究始于这样一个假设，即人们在面对诱惑时，用“其他时间”而不是“不，永远不”来回应，可能会做得更好。从学习理论出发，我们假设人们将非特定的延迟（“我可以在其他时间拥有它”）解释为他们对推迟的诱惑并不强烈重视的信号。这样，非特定的延迟可能会减少当前和未来对推迟的诱惑的欲望和消费。四项实验检验了这些假设。使用自由选择范式的多阶段研究支持了延迟的学习解释：非特定的延迟减少了对自我选择的诱惑的即时欲望，这反过来又在操纵后的一周内统计上解释了消费的减少——但只有在延迟是诱导的，而不是强制的情况下（实验 1）。支持非特定但非特定的延迟意味着弱估值的假设，只有非特定的延迟才会减少对（实验 2）和推迟的诱惑的消费（实验 3）的关注。此外，非特定的延迟主要在那些强烈希望放弃诱惑的人中间延迟消费（实验 3）。最后一个多阶段实验将非特定的延迟与经典的自我控制机制的克制进行了比较，发现非特定的延迟（与克制相比）减少了诱惑在当下的消费，并在操纵后 1 周内减少了消费（实验 4）。本研究为自我控制促进、欲望的改变以及减少不必要行为的非特定和特定意图的差异效应提供了新的见解。
