Does Self-Licensing Benefit Self-Regulation Over Time? An Ecological Momentary Assessment Study of Food Temptations. (June 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Prinsen, Sosja; Evers, Catharine; Wijngaards, Leoniek; van Vliet, Renée; de Ridder, Denise
• Is Part Of: Personality & social psychology bulletin. Volume 44:Number 6(2018)
• Page Start: 914
• Page End: 927
• Publication Date: 2018-06
• Subjects: Self-licensing -- justification -- eating behavior -- momentary assessment -- temptation; Personality -- Periodicals; Social psychology -- Periodicals; 302
• DOI: 10.1177/0146167218754509
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0146-1672

Abstract

Self-licensing, employing reasons to justify indulgence, may help resolve the conflict between immediate temptations and long-term goals in favor of the former. It was hypothesized that this conflict-resolving potential of self-licensing may benefit self-regulation over time. With a momentary assessment design, we examined how self-licensing affects self-regulatory ability and the capacity to deal with subsequent self-regulatory conflicts. One hundred thirty-six female participants filled out surveys eight times per day for one week. Food temptation strength, conflict, resistance, and enactment were assessed, as well as license opportunity and perceived self-regulatory ability. When self-licensing opportunity was high (vs. low), a weaker association between temptation strength and conflict was observed. High license opportunity was associated with higher perceived self-regulatory ability for instances of low degrees of temptation enactment and predicted better handling of subsequent conflict after high degrees of prior temptation enactment. These results suggest that self-licensing can support self-regulation after initial failure.