Identifying and Battling Temptation

Guilford 2 Despite knowing well that " you can't have your cake and eat it too, " people still want many conflicting things at once. That is, people want to fulfill short-term desires and they want to do so without obstructing their long-term interests. Thus, weight watchers wish to eat many delicious cakes and they also wish not to look like they have eaten many delicious cakes. Similarly, professionals wish for early leave on Friday afternoon, and they also wish for early promotions at year-end reviews. And feuding partners want to maintain their innocence in every battle, and they also want to maintain their relationship through every battle. In a world where people want to have it both ways – to enjoy the moment and to prosper in the long run – how do they protect long-term interests from the allure of short-term desires? An individual faces a self-control dilemma whenever the attainment of an alluring desire or temptation would conflict with more important, longer-term goals pervasiveness of self-control dilemmas, identifying that a situation poses one can be surprisingly difficult. Thus, when people choose to pursue short-term desires, it is not always as a result of bad judgment defeating good judgment in the archetypal battle. In many cases, people choose the tempting option because they do not realize it will hurt them in the long run. For example, the professional may leave work early because she does not consider that leaving early on a single Friday afternoon will put her promotion at risk, just as the smoker may light up without considering that a single cigarette poses a health risk. It is only when one has identified a potential conflict that resolution in favor of higher-order goals hinges on effective employment of self-control strategies. This article reviews our research on identifying and counteracting temptations. First, it is useful to define temptations versus goals. We define these conflicting motivations within a given 3 context and with respect to each other 2009). A stimulus can only represent a temptation with respect to another, higher-order goal, which the individual believes is more important. According to this definition, temptations do not have specific content. Rather, any personal motivation can potentially constitute an interfering temptation with respect to a higher-level goal, or it can constitute an overriding goal with respect to a lower-level temptation. For example, " making friends " may be perceived as a …