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theses

Despite having long-terms goals and being motivated to achieve them, people sometimes give in to temptations that conflict with their goals. A dieter enjoys a delicious treat. A student watches a movie instead of studying. Most existing research on self-control measures the self-control decisions people make alone (i.e., independently from other people). In reality, people spend much of their daily lives in social environments and many daily experiences are shared with other people. My dissertation tests whether indulging in temptations together differs from indulging alone.

In my dissertation research, I explored whether, when, and why sharing indulgent experiences with a peer (i.e., “co-indulging”) has different affective and behavioral consequences relative to indulging alone. First, I tested whether shared vs. solo goal-violations differ in the extent to which they produce negative emotions. Across studies, I found that people felt less negative about their indulgent behaviors when they indulged with someone compared to when they did so alone, even when the indulgence itself was exactly the same. Next, I tested whether indulging with a peer led to differences in downstream consequences for goal pursuit, including goal progress monitoring (Study 2) and motivational outcomes (Study 3). Participants who co-indulged felt less negative about the indulgence which led them to believe the same behavior was less harmful for their goals and they were less motivated to engage in goal-consistent action. Next, I tested two possible mechanisms to explore why co-indulgence decreases negative feelings, including whether co-indulging shifts goal priorities (Study 4) and/or minimizes personal feelings of responsibility (Study 6). Across studies, I found that deprioritization of the target goal and decreased feelings of personal responsibility were both processes through which co-indulgence minimized negative feelings. In Study 5, I explored a boundary condition of the co-indulgence effect by testing whether sharing versus not sharing a goal with a peer impacts experience. I found evidence that sharing the goal, versus simply sharing the experience, decreased feelings of personal responsibility to a greater extent, suggesting that goal-seekers may find additional emotional reprieve when their co-indulging peers are similarly violating their goals. Finally, in Studies 6 & 7, I sought to replicate and extend this work in real-world behavioral contexts.

Across studies, I found that sharing an indulgent experience compared to indulging alone shifted people’s feelings about the indulgence, leading them to feel less guilty about an objectively identical behavior and leading them to feel less motivated to repair the failure. Though shared indulgent experiences can boost positive affect and lead to interpersonal closeness, this work suggests that goal-seekers need to be mindful as to how these experiences impact their long-term goals. This work fits into a broader theoretical framework for a model of subjective self-regulatory experience.

ETD_10679

Ph.D.

Includes bibliographical references

doi:10.7282/t3-f98v-3h13

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.