Curb temptation to skip quality control

Temptation and Self-Control†

In a two period decision problem, we study individuals who, in the second period, may be tempted by ex ante inferior choices. Individuals have preferences over sets of alternatives that represent the feasible choices in the second period. Our axioms yield a representation that identifies the individual’s commitment ranking, her temptation ranking, and her cost of selfcontrol. We provide an axio...

Breakfast: To Skip or Not to Skip?

Human eating behaviors are often nonhomeostatic, and thus unlike homeostatic behaviors, they are not exclusively reliant on rigid brain mechanisms, but heavily depend on psychological, sociocultural, and educational factors as well. A clear understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of various eating behaviors is necessary for giving comprehensive educational guidance. However, recommenda...

Saying "no" to temptation: Want-to motivation improves self-regulation by reducing temptation rather than by increasing self-control.

Self-regulation has been conceptualized as the interplay between controlled and impulsive processes; however, most research has focused on the controlled side (i.e., effortful self-control). The present studies focus on the effects of motivation on impulsive processes, including automatic preferences for goal-disruptive stimuli and subjective reports of temptations and obstacles, contrasting th...

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The self-control costs of fighting the temptation to drink.

Being exposed to the sight and smell of an alcoholic beverage and not drinking it should require self-control. On the basis of the self-control strength model (M. Muraven & R. F. Baumeister, 2000), exerting self-control should lead to poorer performance on subsequent self-control tasks. Using a cue exposure paradigm, the authors had 160 social drinkers alternately sniff water and alcohol. After...