126 Personality and Social Psychology Review 18(2) Conclusion iews self-regulation failure as a trade-off bety competing goals (Dhar Simonson.1999:Fishbach& The most intriguing observation that emerges from the ove view of empirically studied justifications is the ease by which Dhar,2005;Louro et al,2007).Typically self-regulatior justification can propel self-regulation failure.Merely read involve two opposing goals tha ig a on in vig ds imagin e The to pursue the on poses that when a person believes sufficient process tov goal again later on can make people digress from their long one goal has been made (e.g.,by skipping the starter at e rela r,progressing to th n pu the go e goal negative effects of the indulgent behavior or perceived goal (2005)asked female dieters to indicate how far off they progress,but justifications vere from their ideal weight on a scale that either hac -51 that is ts cha PO an been studied to date have in mmon how is that the ficient prog ess since the same discrepancy from one's ideal weight would appear small on the wide scale but wider or edthat people onot m to be ver cale. re participants int ne wid thei ion ch over an app arting gif tions indicates how easily justification p s can becom However,as the reviewed justifications indicate,the effects of a justification-based mechanism are not limited to hat is b within th me do as the beha nder dif ere That is.for Sally to indulge in the decade wedding cake,it is no toward a facilitative role of justifications on nor necessary that her justification is related to successful dieting empts Inst according to a justification-based mech ta-d dulgent n is th erat ous behavior sion indeed in the maiority of studies that dem the6 ndings attribute n-based justification processes share many similaritic rated a justific with other mechanisms of self K on nitive tas regulation failure. native me for the ruled out bly as part of anothe study (De Witt Huberts et 012c for the come alter e int of choice (Dha Sim t Failur ernative Novemsky Dha,005).which extendst to a mor t le Theories and Explanations goal progre peopl Examining the wed abo hin at account within a sequence eof multiple choices pe term goal striv ing share many similarities with other ant fer to alterate outcomes which alloy s them to pursu cedents to self-n egulation failure an as we that an itial hedonic choic re indee yould lead to a pre eference for a more restrained option and mechanism contributing to self-regulation failure ce versa That the find me a c Goal Progress Model strated in a study by Mukhopadhyay and Johar (2009 In line with the balancing account,they found that wher people had just bought chocolates as part of the experiment126 Personality and Social Psychology Review 18(2) Conclusion The most intriguing observation that emerges from the over￾view of empirically studied justifications is the ease by which justification can propel self-regulation failure. Merely read￾ing about a potential justification in vignette studies, imagin￾ing a laudable act or effort, both goal achievement and failure, and considering or intending to pursue the long-term goal again later on can make people digress from their long￾term goal. Moreover justifications can be related to the goal that they violate and in a sense constitute “rational” or logi￾cal justifications, such as justifications about undoing the negative effects of the indulgent behavior or perceived goal progress, but justifications can also be unrelated to the behavior that is being justified, and thereby appear to be rather arbitrary. What the various justifications that have been studied to date have in common, however, is that they seem to entail some kind of entitlement (cf. Kivetz & Zheng, 2006). It can be concluded that people do not seem to be very critical of the reasons they apply to violate their intentions. This apparent susceptibility of people to rely on justifica￾tions indicates how easily justification processes can become maladaptive, underlining their importance as an explanation for self-regulation failure. It seems that, although under different names, in the past decade quite some evidence has been gathered that points toward a facilitative role of justifications on norm-violating behavior, luxury choice and indulgent behavior, suggesting that a justification-based mechanism should be taken into account when explaining self-regulatory failure across vari￾ous behavioral domains. However, the findings attributed to justification processes share many similarities with other mechanisms of self-regulation failure. To establish whether justification processes contribute to self-regulatory failure, alternative mechanisms for the presented findings need to be ruled out. Establishing Justification Processes as Independent Determinant of Self-Regulation Failure: Alternative Theories and Explanations Examining the evidence reviewed above suggests that the justifications that have been found to interfere with long￾term goal striving share many similarities with other ante￾cedents to self-regulation failure. In this section, we will review alternative accounts to establish whether justifica￾tions can be accounted for by these similar mechanisms or whether justification processes are indeed an additional mechanism contributing to self-regulation failure. Goal Progress Model An account that a justification-based mechanism shares many similarities with is the goal progress model, which views self-regulation failure as a trade-off between two competing goals (Dhar & Simonson, 1999; Fishbach & Dhar, 2005; Louro et al., 2007). Typically self-regulation dilemmas involve two opposing goals that people intend to pursue, where pursuing one goal means inhibiting the prog￾ress toward the other goal. The goal progress model pro￾poses that when a person believes sufficient process toward one goal has been made (e.g., by skipping the starter at diner, progressing to the goal of a slim figure), he then pur￾sues the opposing goal of enjoying culinary delights (by choosing a tasty dessert). To illustrate, Fishbach and Dhar (2005) asked female dieters to indicate how far off they were from their ideal weight on a scale that either had −5 lbs. (narrow scale) or −25 lbs. (wide scale) as its end-point. The wide scale would lead dieters to believe they had made suf￾ficient progress since the same discrepancy from one’s ideal weight would appear small on the wide scale but wider on the narrow scale. Significantly more participants in the wide scale condition chose a chocolate bar over an apple as a parting gift. However, as the reviewed justifications indicate, the effects of a justification-based mechanism are not limited to justifications that are within the same domain as the behavior that is being justified as posited by the goal progress model. That is, for Sally to indulge in the wedding cake, it is not necessary that her justification is related to successful dieting attempts. Instead, according to a justification-based mecha￾nism, any justification is valid to license gratification, so that Sally could justify her indulgence on the virtue of the cele￾bratory occasion. Indeed, in the majority of studies that dem￾onstrated a justification-based mechanism, justifications such as effort or excellence feedback on cognitive tasks or laudable acts, licensed indulgent behavior in an unrelated domain (eating, shopping behavior, luxury choice), ostensi￾bly as part of another study (De Witt Huberts et al., 2012c; Khan & Dhar, 2006; Kivetz & Zheng, 2006). From consumer research comes a related alternative explanatory account for the observed effects based on the notion of balancing among choices (Dhar & Simonson, 1999; Novemsky & Dhar, 2005), which extends to a more abstract level than the goal progress model in that people attempt to achieve balance between indulgence and restraint in general rather than within a specific domain. According to this account, within a sequence of multiple choices people prefer to alternate outcomes which allows them to pursue both utilitarian as well as hedonic goals. That is, preferences among alternatives can be affected systematically by con￾sumers’ prior actions such that an initial hedonic choice would lead to a preference for a more restrained option and vice versa. That the findings attributed to a justification￾based mechanism cannot be accounted for by such a bal￾ancing mechanism among choices was convincingly demonstrated in a study by Mukhopadhyay and Johar (2009). In line with the balancing account, they found that when people had just bought chocolates as part of the experiment, Downloaded from psr.sagepub.com at Remen University of China on September 6, 2015