Indulging

In the April 2009 issue of Journal of Consumer Research professors Juliano Laran of the University of Miami and Chris Janiszewski of the University of Florida Gainesville report on their findings into why some people overindulge in fattening foods, buy more than they want, and party more than is good for them — and why others seem immune to such weaknesses. Using the temptation of eating truffles (subjects were given choice of eating or not) they found that once the indulgence began folks were more likely to continue, and that subtle cues can change people’s desires.

Seemingly the cues can come from what someone else suggests, even covertly:

In some of the experiments, subjects were “primed” – a technique of unconsciously creating a goal – with words like “delightful” to create an indulgence goal (eat and/or keep eating the truffles) and “appropriate” to stoke a resistance goal (don’t eat or stop eating even after just one).

And cues can come from what we tell ourselves:

If we tell ourselves we value health, our choices tend to reflect that. But if we make a healthy goal and then reach it, or someone says “good job” for resisting, the researchers found we rebound; that is, we allow our indulgence goals to surface as we let go of the healthy goal. [Kinda like ‘I worked hard, made goal, and now I want to play!’] The secret to avoiding switching back to an unhealthy craving is to keep redefining the active goal so you never really reach it, researcher Laran says. “Instead of celebrating the 10-pound loss, renovate the goal to losing inches, or performing better in a physical test.”

They conclude that resisting tends to create more self-discipline in general — people who resisted the truffle also tended to indicate plans to do more homework in the coming week (study done among college students), for example. Indulging only made them crave more indulgence. (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28298157/)

Can’t say I’m excited about this research – I like the sense of meeting goal and love indulging in bites of chocolate occasionally. Still, I know that what I tell myself is crucial: maybe if I don’t think of eating chocolate as an indulgence then I won’t be so tempted to eat lots and lots? Suppose I’m missing the point? Hmmm, I think I want a truffle…