زیاده روی به عنوان خود پاداش برای جلوگیری خرید قبلی: یک مکانیزم مبتنی بر توجیه

This research investigates the effects of refraining from a purchase temptation at one point in time on choices made at a subsequent opportunity to purchase or consume a tempting product. Four experiments involving scenarios and real decisions demonstrate that the salience of restraint at a prior impulse buying opportunity causes consumers to reward themselves subsequently by choosing indulgence over non-indulgence. We show that indulgence is likely to increase only when prior restraint is salient and hence can be used as a justification. As expected, an index of reasons for vs. against buying mediates the relationship between prior impulse purchase decision and indulgent choice. In further support of the mechanism, we find that prior indulgence can have the same effect as prior restraint, if the prior indulgence is made justifiable. Finally, we show that prior shopping restraint can increase indulgence without a corresponding increase in self-esteem. These findings extend our understanding of self-regulation and demonstrate that everyday consumer decisions such as responses to impulse buying opportunities can have consequential downstream effects.

Consumers often have to make a series of purchase decisions in the face of temptations. For example, consumers make multiple, sequential purchase decisions when shopping from catalogs and websites. These decisions include whether to give in to a temptation and purchase products in categories that they had not intended to, or whether to hold back and stick to the shopping list. In the world of brick-and-mortar, consumers may splurge on some books at a bookstore in a mall and then have to make a decision on what snack to eat at the food court. Despite the ubiquity of such moment-to-moment activity, extant research on purchasing behavior has concentrated on one-time brand choice and purchase quantity decisions, often in situations where purchases are intended. However, decisions made at one point in time, even if seemingly irrelevant, may carry over to influence subsequent decisions. Consumer researchers have only recently begun to examine such sequences of decisions (Dhar et al., 2007, Dholakia et al., 2005 and Mukhopadhyay et al., 2008). This research adds to this literature by investigating the effects of refraining from a purchase temptation on decisions to purchase or consume a different tempting product at a subsequent opportunity. Temptations have been formally defined as “momentary allurements” that threaten a currently active goal (Fishbach, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2003). In a purchasing context, this implicates situations of impulse buying (Stern, 1962) where consumers do not have a goal of purchasing a specific product but may well have an overarching goal of wealth maintenance (Hirschman, 1990 and Wärneryd, 1999). Our main hypothesis is that a salient memory of restraint in the face of such temptation sanctions consumers to reward themselves when a subsequent temptation presents itself. We review the literature and derive our hypotheses below.

The proportion of respondents opting to self-reward at T2 by choosing the cake over the fruit salad was cross-tabulated against the two independent variables. The basic self-reward effect was replicated in the condition where self-esteem was measured after T2, with participants who had not bought at T1 being more likely to choose cake over fruit salad than those who had bought at T1 (Ms = 38.0% vs. 19.1%, χ2(1) = 4.19, p < .05). However, when self-esteem was measured before the T2 decision, there was no difference between those who had not bought vs. those who had bought at T1 (Ms = 39.6% vs. 26.1%, χ2(1) = 1.94, p > .15; see Table 2). Analysis of the self-esteem revealed no significant effects; all respondents reported uniformly high self-esteem (M = 3.58 on a 5-point scale). Hence, the no-buy decision did not boost self-esteem in this case (ceiling effects may be possible in this high self-esteem population); however, being reminded of their (high) self-esteem led to generally increased indulgence.These results demonstrate strong support for our proposed justification mechanism. When presented an opportunity to indulge after a prior occasion of indulgence or restraint, we find that not buying at T1 leads to greater indulgence. Further, simply recalling the act of restraining or giving in at T1 does not influence self-esteem. However, when respondents are reminded of their generally high self-esteem, even those who bought at T1 tend to become more indulgent. This supports the self-esteem route to indulgence proposed by Khan and Dhar (2006). However, when participants are not reminded of their high self-esteem, those who had not bought at T1 tend to indulge more than those who had bought at T1. Given that self-esteem is the same across conditions, the only explanation for this finding is that prior restraint affords justification for indulgence.