Justified indulgence: The effects of self-licensing on self-regulation over time

Abstract

Goal violations are often explained in terms of not being able to resist temptations. However, rather than being unable, people may sometimes deliberately choose to temporarily abandon their goals by employing licenses that justify this discrepant behavior. This is referred to as self-licensing, and is driven by self-regulation dilemmas between acting on temptation for immediate gratification (e.g., indulging in tasty foods) and behaving wisely to secure long-term interests (e.g., weight control). At first sight it seems that self-licensing harms successful goal pursuit, as it makes it easier to choose the indulgent yet ill-advised option. However, to establish whether such justification processes are ultimately harmful or beneficial in the long run, the effects of self-licensing on the ability to deal with repeated confrontations with temptations need to be examined. Especially because theoretically, reliance on self-licensing might go either way and either impair or promote subsequent attempts at self-regulation. Therefore, the overall objective of the present dissertation was to explore whether self-licensing has potential benefits for self-regulation over time. A series of empirical studies was conducted to address the research aims resulting from this objective: (1) to corroborate the observation that self-licensing results in immediate self-regulation failure; (2) to examine what happens next by examining subsequent handling of temptations after an initial (un)justified moment of failure; and (3) to see whether distinct ways of self-licensing can be identified that are either helpful or harmful for self-regulation in the long run. As expected, self-licensing was found to stimulate initial self-regulation failure, as corroborated by both lab and field experiments. However, subsequent goal re-engagement was observed in a momentary assessment study. In this latter study and two vignette studies it was also observed that self-licensing can safeguard perceived self-regulatory ability after indulgent moments. In addition, a snack diary study revealed that whether self-licensing supports successful self-regulation in the long run is probably dependent on the distinct way that individuals justify indulgence (i.e., functional or dysfunctional). Altogether, these findings suggest that there is indeed a positive side to self-licensing that becomes apparent when the focus shifts from immediate self-regulation failure to enduring successful self-regulation. Besides extending self-licensing theory by adding predictions about more long-term outcomes, the obtained insights might inspire new approaches and guide the development of behavior change techniques to deal with unsuccessful self-regulation.