Highly Restrictive Goals Turn Temptations into Multifinal Means (2016)

Undergraduate: Allison Price

Faculty Advisor: Steven Buzinski
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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People and programs frequently strive to adhere to "cold turkey" policies, forming goals with highly restrictive demands or exhortations (e.g., no more chocolate, ever). These highly restrictive goals (e.g., a restrictive diet plan) provoke a threat to an individual???s freedom, which activates psychological reactance (the goal to restore personal freedom). _x000D_
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In the absence of a highly restrictive goal, indulging in a temptation (e.g., eating a brownie) satisfies a single goal, namely the temptation goal (e.g., to eat something tasty). However, when a highly restrictive goal is activated, indulging in a temptation satisfies the additional goal of restoring personal freedom. A single act, or means, that satisfies one goal (i.e., ???unifinal???) is perceived as more instrumental, and when it satisfies multiple goals (i.e., ???multifinal???) as more valuable. Therefore, we hypothesize that setting a highly restrictive (vs. non-restrictive) goal turns temptations into multifinal means, consequently increasing the temptations??? perceived value. _x000D_
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To investigate this hypothesis, we are conducting three studies. Studies 1 and 2 manipulate goal restrictiveness and measure multifinality outcomes (i.e., perceived instrumentality and value) for temptation- and goal-related means. Study 3 extends the findings of studies 1 and 2 by including a behavioral measure of temptation valuation (i.e., temptation indulgence).