THE INTERPERSONAL COSTS OF INDULGENCE
A DISSERTATION
SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
AND THE COMMITTEE ON GRADUATE STUDIES
OF STANFORD UNIVERSITY
IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE DEGREE OF
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Anna Catherine Merritt
July 2013
© 2013 by Anna Catherine Merritt. All Rights Reserved. Re-distributed by Stanford University under license with the author.
This dissertation is online at: http://purl.stanford.edu/dx170vt4616
ii I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Benoit Monin, Primary Adviser
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Uzma Khan
I certify that I have read this dissertation and that, in my opinion, it is fully adequate in scope and quality as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
Dale Miller
Approved for the Stanford University Committee on Graduate Studies. Patricia J. Gumport, Vice Provost Graduate Education
This signature page was generated electronically upon submission of this dissertation in electronic format. An original signed hard copy of the signature page is on file in University Archives.
iii iv
Abstract
A series of studies supported the hypotheses that those who indulge, either by purchasing luxury products or eating unhealthy foods, are seen as less trustworthy
(H1) and lower in self-control (H2). Across a wide range of indulgence manipulations including car brand (Studies 1a-1c), wedding budget (Study 2), the amount spent on household items and clothing (Studies 3-5), and food choice (Study 6), participants rated indulgent targets lower on various measures of trust and self-control, including a behavioral measure of financial trust (Study 3). These effects remained significant when the target’s income was held constant across conditions (Studies 1b-2, 4).
Mediation analyses revealed that the effect of indulgence on trust was explained by the fact that those who indulge were seen as having lower self-control (H3). The trust effect was even stronger when the target indulged in violation of a self-restraint goal, and this difference was again driven by changes in perceived self-control (H5; Study
6). Discussion focuses on self-control, other potential moderators of the observed effects, and implications for marketers and those looking to make favorable impressions on others. v
Acknowledgements
It is customary to write one’s dissertation using first person singular pronouns, but for me it felt strange and unnatural because of the many people who contributed to this research. First and foremost, I am extremely grateful for the support of my advisor, Benoît Monin. Thank you for sharing your time, your wisdom, and some excellent jokes. I would also like to thank Uzma Khan, whose fantastic consumer behavior class first inspired this research, and Dale Miller, whose thoughtful comments have greatly contributed to this project. You have both given invaluable feedback and suggestions as members of my reading committee. I am also grateful for my research mentors from undergrad, Steve Fein and Ken Savitsky, whose teaching and guidance first got me excited about social psychology. I am thankful for Carrie
Chen’s hard work as a research assistant on this project, and for the supportive and inspiring intellectual community that is the Monin-Mullen Morality lab.
I don’t think I could have made it here alive without the continued support of my friends and family. I am very grateful to my parents, John Merritt and Patricia
Billingsley, for teaching me to be curious about why people do what they do and encouraging me to pursue knowledge for its own sake. Thank you for always believing in me, even when I complained about grad school. I thank Dean Weesner for providing emotional support and for being an excellent sounding board for research ideas. Finally, I am deeply grateful for the friends I have found at Stanford, many of them within my Ph.D. cohort; I feel very lucky to have worked (and not-worked!) alongside so many brilliant and wonderful people, and it was a pleasure to share the ups and downs of graduate education with you. vi
Table of Contents
Abstract...... iv
Acknowledgements ...... v
Table of Contents ...... vi
Index of Tables...... ix
Index of Figures...... x
Index of Appendix Items...... xi
Introduction ...... 1
Literature Review ...... 4
What is indulgence, and why is it bad? ...... 4
Lingering Puritan sentiments in America...... 8
Trade, consumerism, and the demoralization of luxury...... 9
Self-regulation (or lack thereof) in consumer choice ...... 11
Consumer guilt ...... 12
Justifications allow for guilt-free indulgence...... 15
From judging the self to judging others ...... 25
Forming impressions of personality and morality...... 26
Affluence and personality stereotypes...... 31
Judging moral character ...... 34
Moderators and amplifiers of the link between indulgence and self-control39
Situational bounds on indulgence ...... 39
Goal pursuit and goal failure...... 40
The Present Research ...... 41 vii
Outline of studies...... 43
Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c: You Are What You Drive?...... 43
Study 1a...... 44
Method...... 44
Results...... 46
Study 1b...... 50
Method...... 51
Results...... 52
Study 1c...... 54
Method...... 54
Results...... 55
Discussion: Studies 1a-1c...... 56
Study 2: Say “I Do” to Indulgence...... 57
Method...... 58
Results...... 60
Discussion...... 63
Study 3: Trust Game...... 64
Method...... 65
Results...... 70
Discussion...... 72
Study 4: Medical Negligence ...... 73
Methods ...... 73
Results...... 76 viii
Discussion...... 79
Study 5: A Luxurious Birthday Gift...... 80
Methods ...... 81
Results...... 84
Discussion...... 87
Study 6: Burger Or Salad?...... 88
Method...... 89
Results...... 91
Discussion...... 94
General Discussion...... 73
Self-control and trust...... 97
Future directions: Other potential moderators...... 98
Implications for marketers ...... 105
Conclusions ...... 106
Tables ...... 107
Figures ...... 111
Appendix: Study Materials...... 113
References ...... 129
ix
Index of Tables
Table 1: Big Five and other trait ratings by indulgence condition, Study 1a...... 107
Table 2: Big Five and other trait ratings by indulgence condition, Study 1b...... 108
Table 3: Big Five and other trait ratings by indulgence condition, Study 1c...... 109
Table 4: Summary of results for all studies...... 110 x
Index of Figures
Figure 1: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with
condition, self-control, and irresponsibility, Study 2...... 111
Figure 2: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with
condition, self-control, and negative life outcomes, Study 2...... 111
Figure 3: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with
condition, self-control, and trustworthiness, Study 3...... 112
Figure 4: Guilt composite by indulgence and testimony, Study 4...... 112
Figure 5: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with
condition, self-control, and trustworthiness, Study 5...... 113
Figure 6: Morality ratings by indulgence and struggle, Study 6...... 113
Figure 7: Self-control ratings by indulgence and struggle, Study 6...... 114
Figure 8: Trustworthiness ratings by indulgence and struggle, Study 6...... 115
Figure 9: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with
condition, self-control, and trustworthiness, Study 6...... 115 xi
Index of Appendix Items
Appendix item 1: Example profile from Study 1a...... 116
Appendix item 2: Example profile from Studies 1b and 1c...... 117
Appendix item 3: Vignette text from Study 2...... 118
Appendix item 4: Predicted life events measured in Study 2...... 119
Appendix item 5: Script from confederate videos in Study 3...... 120
Appendix item 6: Vignette text from Study 4...... 121
Appendix item 7: Stimuli from Study 5...... 125
Appendix item 8: Restaurant vignette (struggle / indulgence condition) from Study 6.
...... 128
1
Introduction
In April 2007, well over a year before the 2008 election, presidential hopeful
John Edwards made a mistake that may well have cost him his chance at the
Democratic nomination. He got two $400 haircuts.
When the costly trims were discovered on Edwards’ campaign expense report, both Democrats and Republicans were outraged. Edwards immediately paid his campaign back out of his own pocket, claiming that he never knew how much the haircuts had cost (Lowy, 2007). Yet the outrage continued, and there seemed to be something more fundamentally problematic about the haircuts. People were similarly upset about his extravagant 28,000-square-foot home in North Carolina (Dowd, 2007).
It was no secret that Edwards was a self-made millionaire – if he could afford the fancy haircuts, what was the harm?
Several potential explanations for the public outrage come to mind. First, high- end haircuts clashed with Edwards’ campaign promises about understanding and addressing the plight of the working class in America. Given Edwards’ carefully crafted political image as a regular working-class guy, the frivolous haircuts seemed hypocritical and cast doubt on the sincerity of his message. As New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd put it, “Someone who aspires to talk credibly about the two
Americas can’t lavish on his locks what working families may spend on electricity in a year. You can’t sell earnestness while indulging in decadence” (2007). Related to this hypocrisy is the idea that our leaders should set a good example; particularly in the poor economy of 2007, it was important for our potential President to encourage
Americans to spend their money wisely, which usually means abstaining from luxury 2
purchases. These somewhat legitimate concerns about indulgent spending will be addressed in more detail later in the paper, but for now they will not be my main focus.
Perhaps a more compelling explanation for the negative reactions to Edwards’ haircuts is that his self-indulgent spending suggested some kind of fundamental character flaw – an overall impression of self-involvement, lack of self-control, and irresponsibility. These negative traits associated with extravagant spending suggest a broader phenomenon: the decisions we make about how to spend and save our money are tinged with morality. This is especially true in the case of frivolous purchases that are made primarily to increase one’s pleasure or comfort; the American public would likely not have been so upset if Edwards had spent $400 (or even $400,000) on computers for his campaign staff or orthodontics for his children.
I argue that when people learn that someone has bought something indulgent – like a $400 haircut – they see that person as lacking in moral integrity. Further, I believe that the link between indulgence and immorality can be at least partly explained by judgments of the indulger’s self-control. Because self-indulgent purchases typically involve “giving in” to a strong desire for an item that brings hedonic pleasure (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Khan, Dhar, & Wertenbroch, 2005;
Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999; Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998; Wertenbroch, 1998), those who indulge will be perceived as lacking self-control relative to those who spend more moderately. Perceived self-control, in turn, should influence interpersonal trust
(Righetti & Finkenauer, 2011), such that indulgent people are seen as less trustworthy and less moral overall. Americans in particular may be more likely to associate 3
indulgence and poor self-control with immorality because of lingering cultural traces of their country’s Puritan heritage, although this paper makes no attempt at cross- cultural comparison (Uhlmann, Poehlman, & Bargh, 2009; Uhlmann, Poehlman,
Tannenbaum, & Bargh, 2011). Finally, because people are systematically biased towards inferring stable personality traits (rather than situational motivations) from the actions of others, I expect that impressions formed on the basis of isolated indulgent purchases can have meaningful downstream consequences for how we treat those who make these choices (Gilbert & Malone, 1995; Jones & Davis, 1965; Jones & Nisbett,
1971; Ross & Nisbett, 1991).
In this dissertation, I present a series of research studies that illuminate the effect a person’s indulgent purchases can have on judgments of her character. First, however, I briefly discuss the meaning of indulgence in the American cultural context and review existing research that shows that people see the purchase of hedonic goods as a morally loaded domain, at least as far as their own behavior is concerned. Next, I review the literature on interpersonal judgments based on consumer choice, with the goal of explaining how and why people might use self-indulgence as an indicator of others’ morality, and why I believe self-control should mediate the relationship between indulgence and morality. Finally, I discuss factors that should moderate or amplify the observers’ ability to make judgments of global self-control based on indulgence. 4
Literature Review
What is indulgence, and why is it bad?
In this section, I discuss the historical and cultural context that likely contributes to people’s negative reactions to indulgence. First, however, it is useful to define several key terms that I will use throughout this paper.
Hedonic goods. Above, I argued that John Edwards would not have received such unfavorable reactions if he had spent $400 on something with more practical value than a haircut. These two types of purchases (frivolous and practical) are often referred to as hedonic or utilitarian goods. Utilitarian purchases, such as a warm winter coat or a vacuum cleaner, are goods that satisfy basic needs (e.g., protection from the elements) and allow us to meet practical goals (e.g., having a clean house).
Their main value is their ability to help us meet these goals, and any pleasure we might take in using or consuming them is incidental (Kivetz & Simonson, 2002a). By contrast, hedonic goods are things that we want but do not need (Berry, 1994). They fall lower in the hierarchy of needs than utilitarian goods, and are meant to evoke feelings of fun, comfort, and sensual pleasure (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Khan et al., 2005; Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999; Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998). Because hedonic goods are discretionary purchases made after one’s basic needs are met, they are also associated with an abundance of resources (Berry, 1994). While many products have both hedonic and utilitarian features, most can be categorized as primarily utilitarian or hedonic (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; Okada, 2005; O’Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001).
Some examples of primarily hedonic goods are reality television, chocolate, and bluegrass music. 5
Indulgence. Throughout this paper, I will refer to indulgent goods as those that provide primarily hedonic benefits but carry potential long-term costs relative to a more practical alternative. Indulgent products represent a sub-category of hedonic goods because, in many contexts, hedonic goods do not necessarily carry the risk of long-term costs; for example, listening to bluegrass music provides aesthetic pleasure but does not do any harm (unless choosing to listen to music is somehow pitted against the need for something more utilitarian). Indulgent products tend to have strong appeal on an emotional level but weak appeal on a rational cognitive level
(Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999). Indulgence is about giving in to temptation, typically against one’s best interest, and thus can be classified as a type of vice behavior (Khan et al., 2005; Khan & Dhar, 2007; Wertenbroch, 1998). Behavioral marketing researchers typically define vices as “goods that are tempting to consume but whose consumption may entail negative consequences in the future;” by contrast, “virtues are goods that are tempting not to consume, though their consumption may entail positive future consequences” (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2012, p.15). Products that conflict with common self-regulation goals like health and wealth maintenance are the most prototypical forms of indulgence. In most cases, a single instance of buying something expensive or eating something unhealthy is not enough to derail these important goals.
Nonetheless, people tend to feel guilty about indulging if they cannot find a suitable justification (a topic I will cover at length in the next section).
Luxury goods. Luxury goods are usually hedonic and represent one sub- category of indulgent products. Like hedonic goods, luxury goods are products that are not necessities and primarily serve to provide sensual and aesthetic, rather than 6
practical, benefits. Like indulgent goods, luxury goods carry the risk of long-term costs; in the short-term, splurging on a designer purse is probably not enough to break the bank, but in the long-term, a taste for luxury can have serious negative consequences for one’s financial security. A few additional features are required for something to be considered a luxury (Berry, 1994). First, luxuries are refined, meaning that they are qualitatively superior to the most basic product that would satisfy the same need. They can easily be substituted for a simpler version of the same product. In fact, many prototypical luxury goods (e.g., dinner at a fancy restaurant, a vacation home in the Caribbean) are “enhanced” versions of goods that serve basic needs (e.g., food and shelter). Because people pay a premium for this refinement, luxury purchases often come with the risk of overspending. Luxuries are also exclusive – they are widely desired, but available only to a select few. Neither the desirability nor the scarcity of an item makes it luxurious on its own. Something like a caramel macchiato is widely desired but also widely available, so it can be categorized as a hedonic good but not a luxury (although advertisers often try to cultivate the idea that such treats are special and luxurious). At the other end of the continuum, a sweater knit from human hair is difficult to find, but few people would want to buy one, so it would not be a luxury item.
The term luxury is always relative, and changes over time and across different cultural contexts. Owning a car was once a luxury in America, but today in most parts of the country it is not extravagant at all – in fact, many people see owning a car as a necessity. As products and services become cheaper and more widely available, they often shift from wants to needs, although, as Berry (1994) points out, they merely 7
become “social needs” and will never be as important as basic physical needs like food or shelter. The meaning of a luxury can also change on an individual level. A product that most people consider a luxury can become necessary to achieve a practical goal – for example, a businessman may need a high-end designer suit to project an air of success to potential investors (Berry, 1994). Similarly, buying a new dress feels like less of a luxury when one plans to wear it to a specific upcoming event
(Chiou & Ting, 2011). Thus, although some products are almost universally considered luxuries, it is important to keep the social context in mind when studying perceptions of luxury purchases.
It is also important to note that not all luxury goods are hedonic; one can certainly purchase high-end versions of utilitarian goods (e.g., a luxury vacuum cleaner). Yet while luxuries do not have to be useless -- just like the Toyota Corolla,
“the Rolls-Royce gets one from A to B” (Berry, 1994, p. 24) -- among more utilitarian luxury products, the value added in the luxury version is mostly hedonic. Also, research suggests that most luxury products are also categorized as hedonic (Kivetz &
Simonson, 2002a), so I will use the terms “hedonic” and “luxury” more or less interchangeably for the purposes of this paper.
Lingering Puritan sentiments in America
One reason why Americans in particular might condemn indulgence is because of the cultural influence of the country’s ascetic Protestant founders. In his influential book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber (1905 / 2008) proposed that the success of capitalism could be largely attributed to the doctrines of
Protestant Christian faith, especially Calvinism. According to John Calvin and his 8
followers, a small minority was predestined for salvation in the afterlife. Nothing could be done to earn entry into heaven, but certain signs would distinguish the chosen few from those destined for damnation. Most notably, worldly success was a sure sign of God’s favor. People were obviously motivated to believe that they were among the chosen few, so they sought to confirm their predestination by accruing wealth through secular work. Thus, financial success became the metric by which one could measure one’s chances of salvation. Protestant leaders also extolled the intrinsic virtues of hard work as a means to contribute to the common good. Weber argues that this combination paved the way for capitalism and industrialization in Protestant countries.
Over time, the religious underpinnings of the Protestant ethic have largely fallen away (Weber, 1905 / 2008). Yet a belief in the value of work for its own sake remains strong in many Western countries, including America. One result of the
Protestant work ethic is that people still measure their worth in terms of worldly success. Hard work and self-discipline are also highly valued, as evidenced by the
“American dream” – the idea that anyone can succeed with enough effort. An implication of this belief is that one’s success in life is directly correlated with one’s innate ability and merit.
This belief in merit-based success can be motivating under the right circumstances, but it can also have negative consequences. If one believes that success is always possible with enough hard work, it becomes difficult to make situational attributions for the success or failure of different groups in society. The Protestant worldview allows members of dominant groups to justify their privileged position by attributing disadvantaged groups’ struggles to a lack of personal merit. For example, 9
White Americans who were primed with Protestant work values were more likely to endorse negative stereotypes about Black Americans (Katz & Hass, 1988).
An important feature of the Protestant worldview is that material wealth was to be spent rationally; that is, on necessities or in productive investments. Luxuries were explicitly proscribed, as Weber describes here:
“This worldly Protestant asceticism, as we may recapitulate up to this point, acted powerfully against the spontaneous enjoyment of possessions; it restricted consumption, especially of luxuries… On the other hand, they approved the rational and utilitarian uses of wealth which were willed by God for the needs of the individual and the community” (1905 / 2008, p. 84).
Recent research has suggested that undercurrents of the Puritan-Protestant value system are still very much a part of American culture (Rozin, 1999; Uhlmann et al., 2011). Although these values are often most evident at an implicit level (e.g., when people are primed to respond intuitively), they can nonetheless influence people’s attitudes about work, sex, and consumption. In one study, American participants who read about a school with a conservative dress code (which should prime Puritan-
Protestant sexual values) rated luxury products associated with conspicuous consumption (e.g., a Rolls-Royce) more negatively than Americans in the control group. In historically Catholic France, participants’ ratings of the luxury products did not differ between the two conditions (Uhlmann et al., 2009). This intriguing result suggests that lingering Puritan-Protestant values may be a major source of the guilt that Americans experience while making indulgent purchases.
Trade, consumerism, and the demoralization of luxury
In recent history, attitudes toward indulgent consumption have become less restrictive. As I will explain in detail later in the paper, there is much evidence to 10
suggest that Americans still feel guilty about overindulging (e.g., Wertenbroch, 1998;
Xu & Schwarz, 2009). Yet there has been a cultural push to embrace consumption as a positive sign of financial success and personal freedom. Popular sentiment surrounding luxuries began to shift as early as the seventeenth century, when trade became a major source of income in Europe and luxury goods from around the world became more widely available. Although many seventeenth-century writers still argued that a taste for luxury was detrimental to economic success, English economist
Nicholas Barbon realized that the demand for spices, fashionable clothing, and other luxury goods was instrumental in promoting trade. Barbon was also one of the first to ascribe intrinsic value to luxuries, in their ability to promote “the refinement of the senses” and “ease, pleasure and pomp” (Berry, 1994, p. 125).
Over the course of the twentieth century, American attitudes toward consumption changed dramatically (Cross, 2000). Beginning in the 1920s, people began to see their purchases as an expression of their democratic freedom; indeed,
Prohibition was repealed in part because opponents argued that Prohibitionists were
“un-American for denying personal choice and responsibility” (Cross, 2000, p. 130).
In the late 1930s, the American government started encouraging consumer spending as a way to stimulate the economy, so much so that consumption became a patriotic duty.
After World War II, this movement toward consumerism grew even stronger; private individual consumption was used as “a tool in the war of ideas against Communism”
(Cross, 2000, p. 139). For better or worse, the affluence and social mobility enjoyed by Americans in the latter half of the century ensured that consumerism became deeply embedded in American culture. Cross (2000) defines consumerism as “the 11
belief that goods give meaning to individuals and their roles in society” (2000, p. 1).
He argues that Americans no longer define their place in society through political activism or shared values; rather, they assert their personal freedom and create meaning through their purchases.
This modern consumerist mindset is directly at odds with Puritan-Protestant values regarding luxury and wealth. It is no surprise that Americans today feel deeply ambivalent about consumption, leisure, and sex (Uhlmann et al., 2009). The appeal of hedonic goods is undeniable, but their consumption is still associated with feelings of guilt. As a result, Americans see product choice as a morally loaded situation; giving in to the temptation presented by hedonic goods could have negative implications for their self-discipline and their moral integrity as a whole. The research suggests that people are able to resolve this tension by deploying any of a number of justification techniques that effectively decouple their consumption choices from their ability to exercise self-control more generally.
Self-regulation (or lack thereof) in consumer choice
As I just described, the historical and cultural context of American consumerism suggests that people might see the decision of whether or not to indulge in hedonic goods as a morally loaded choice. This idea has been supported empirically by a substantial body of research, largely in behavioral marketing, showing that people are wary of overindulging in hedonic purchases. Taken together, this literature suggests that self-indulgent shopping has the moralized flavor of a vice, even if it does not qualify as a serious moral transgression (Khan et al., 2005). Individuals use their shopping choices to communicate various aspects of their actual or desired self- 12
concepts (Pettit & Sivanathan, 2010; Sirgy, 1982), and unchecked indulgent shopping could suggest a lack of self-control that is threatening to the self. People may fear that if they indulge in one or two unjustified hedonic purchases, they will be on a slippery slope to complete extravagance. One way to resist overindulgence is to exercise effortful self-restraint, a strategy that is fairly effective so long as people have adequate cognitive resources. However, when people become distracted or focused on unrelated goals, the emotional appeal of indulgence often overrides cold cognitive concerns about long-term goals like health or wealth (Ferraro, Shiv, & Bettman, 2005;
Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999). In the absence of a reason for giving in to temptation, people who indulge get the short-term hedonic but often simultaneous suffer the aversive emotional experience of consumer guilt.
In this section, I describe the psychological literature on indulgence; assuming that people have a natural attraction to indulgent goods, what factors govern whether they do or do not indulge? This part of the literature review represents a slight departure from my main hypotheses surrounding interpersonal judgments, but it is helpful in that it shows just how fraught purchase decisions can be. It also shows that people typically exercise quite a bit of self-restraint when confronted by tempting luxuries, which helps explain why they might see someone who indulges as lacking in self-control.
Consumer guilt
One sign that people see indulgence as a vice that requires self-regulation is that consumers often feel guilty about making hedonic purchases. Guilt is frequently called a “moral emotion” because it arises when we violate personal and social 13
standards of behavior, including moral standards (Lascu, 1991; Tangney, Steuwig, &
Mashek, 2007). Guilty feelings (as opposed to shameful ones) are typically directed at specific problematic actions, and accordingly they prompt people to undo the negative effects of those actions (Lascu, 1991; Niedenthal, Tangney, & Gavanski, 1994). As a result, guilt can serve as an adaptive self-regulatory mechanism, letting us know which behaviors should be avoided in order to maintain social harmony (Baumeister,
Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994; Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010).
In the context of consumer behavior, qualitative data suggests that guilt arises most often when consumers fail at self-regulation and make purchase decisions that conflict with social expectations or personal goals. Dahl, Honea, and Manchanda
(2003) surveyed shoppers and asked them to recall a time when they felt guilty while purchasing or using a product. They categorized participants’ responses according to who or what was violated by the guilt-inducing behavior: another person, societal standards, or one’s own personal goals. About a quarter of the recalled purchases made people feel guilty because they might harm or upset another person (e.g., making a purchase that one’s spouse would not approve of), and another quarter induced guilt because they violated social norms (e.g., purchasing goods that are harmful to the environment). Participants most commonly felt guilty when their consumption behavior interfered with a personal goal, either through action or inaction
(e.g., buying frivolous or unhealthy items; failing to take advantage of goal-related purchases like a gym membership). This is consistent with the finding that self-control failures are one of the most common sources of guilt (Baumeister, Stillwell, &
Heatherton, 1995). 14
Consumers are more likely to feel guilty when making hedonic purchases than utilitarian ones, perhaps because hedonic purchases are more likely to violate the social and personal standards just described. This guilt arises in part because hedonic goods are consumed primarily for pleasure and fun, benefits that are more difficult to quantify than those provided by utilitarian goods (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982;
Okada, 2005; Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999). Because the benefits of hedonic goods are less tangible, it is more difficult to generate legitimate reasons to buy them, and spending without reason conflicts with the commonly-held goal of avoiding unnecessary spending (Hirschman, 1990). For example, it is easy to list reasons why one needs a vacuum cleaner, but it is relatively more difficult to explain why one needs a sleek convertible. Also, insofar as one can reasonably afford a high-end product, the fact that the money could be saved rather than spent may be more salient when making hedonic purchases. Luxury goods are, by definition, unnecessary for meeting one’s needs (Berry, 1994). As a result, it is harder for consumers to justify buying luxury goods, and this lack of justification creates guilt (Kivetz, 1999; Prelec
& Loewenstein, 1998; Shafir, Simonson, & Tversky, 1993). Until their guilt is reduced in some way, people are more likely to resist indulging. For all these reasons, it is safe to assume that people see unjustified hedonic purchases as more immoral and more linked to self-control failures than utilitarian purchases.
Guilt is associated with feelings of negative arousal, and people are motivated to reduce this unpleasant affective state (Amodio, Devine, & Harmon-Jones, 2007;
Khan, Fishbach, & Dhar, 2011; Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010). This avoidance motivation is so powerful that people do not actually need to experience guilt for it to 15
affect their choices – they will refrain from a given behavior if they merely anticipate that it will make them feel guilty (Tangney et al., 2007; Xu & Schwarz, 2009). Khan,
Fishbach, and Dhar (2011) showed that even priming people with guilt words automatically activates guilt-avoidance goals. In one study, participants responded to a guilt prime by rating ambiguously unhealthy snack foods (e.g., low-fat Pringles) as healthier, suggesting that they were motivated to see virtuous, guilt-reducing options in their environment. Because people are so motivated to avoid guilt, one might assume that they would steer clear of hedonic goods altogether. However, an extreme tendency to avoid indulgence, known as hyperopia, can actually result in negative psychological outcomes because hyperopic consumers feel like they are missing out on the pleasures of life (Haws & Poynor, 2008; Kivetz & Simonson, 2002b). Yet even if this drawback did not exist, the hyperopic approach is not feasible for most people simply because hedonic goods are extremely tempting and desirable (Bazerman,
Tenbrunsel, & Wade-Benzoni, 1998; Okada, 2005). Instead, consumers rely on a sophisticated set of justifications that help reduce their guilt about indulging in hedonic goods. Each of these justification strategies increases the likelihood that people will make hedonic purchases.
Justifications allow for guilt-free indulgence
In order to resolve the conflict between their desire for hedonic goods and their need to avoid guilt about compromising their health and financial integrity, people often limit their indulgence to situations where it can be justified. A review of the literature yields four main strategies that people use to justify indulgence in consumer contexts: 1) framing indulgence as a reward for effort or self-control, 2) restricting 16
indulgence to specific, relatively rare situations, 3) mentally separating the indulgence from the pain of paying for it, and 4) licensing indulgence through past or anticipated virtuous behavior. With each of these strategies, people manage to separate indulgence from its damaging implications for morality and self-control. For most people, these strategies really do regulate their indulgence so that it does not get out of hand; however, distressingly high rates of obesity (Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, 2011) and credit card debt (Geisst, 2009) in America suggest that people are quite adept at justifying indulgence beyond what is in their best interest.
Entitling oneself to indulge. A common strategy that consumers use to justify indulgent choices is “earning” the right to indulge through hard work or effective self- control. Working hard makes people feel more comfortable with hedonic purchases in part because of cultural norms about when it is acceptable to indulge; one of the most acceptable forms of indulgence is as a reward for effort (Weber, 1905 / 2008; Xu &
Schwarz, 2009). One example of such earned indulgence is a frequency program (e.g., frequent flyer miles) where consumers earn a reward by remaining loyal to a certain brand or store even when it might be more convenient or affordable to switch brands.
As the amount of work required to obtain a reward increases, people increasingly prefer hedonic rewards over utilitarian rewards (Kivetz & Simonson, 2002a), presumably because their effort justifies the reward and allows them to indulge guilt- free. Kivetz and Simonson (2002a) found that this effect was particularly strong among people who said they often felt guilty when purchasing luxurious products and services. Also, preference for a luxury reward over a utilitarian reward decreased if a high (vs. low) monetary cost was associated with joining the frequency program; this 17
suggests that hedonic items are seen as desirable rewards only when people have expended time and effort, not after monetary expenditure. People also feel entitled to indulge when they have attained a high level of achievement, even when the positive feedback is bogus (Kivetz & Zheng, 2006). Interestingly, although consumers believe that they will enjoy a luxury reward more when they have earned it, their actual enjoyment of a reward does not depend on how much they feel entitled to it (Xu &
Schwarz, 2009). Obviously, even though it appears that effort does not affect people’s ability to enjoy luxury goods, the lay belief that indulgence is an appropriate reward for hard work is still important because it drives consumer behavior and should affect judgments of others who indulge.
It is not always necessary to earn indulgence through action; sometimes inaction can work just as well. Specifically, consumers feel less guilty indulging in luxury purchases if they have recently resisted temptation (Kivetz & Zheng, 2006). In a study by Mukhopadhyay and Johar (2009), participants were asked to recall a time when they had been tempted to buy something and had either given in to temptation or resisted. After a few filler tasks, they were presented with a real-life choice between a piece of cake and a fruit salad. Those who had remembered resisting the past temptation were more likely to indulge and choose the cake. This effect was mediated by how much participants felt that the indulgence was justified, and it only held when the past self-restraint was made salient to participants. The latter finding implies an interesting possibility: in everyday life, people who are tempted to indulge in hedonic goods may strategically look to the past and try to bring to mind occasions where they had resisted other temptations. Although these past episodes of self-control may not 18
have been particularly meaningful when they occurred, they can be made salient when consumers need them to justify a present indulgence (see Effron, Miller, & Monin,
2012).
Restricting indulgence to bounded situations. As I described previously, one thing that may make indulgence threatening is that people are concerned that one splurge might mean that they will indulge with no restraint whenever a temptation arises. Justifying indulgence as a self-reward forestalls this threatening self-belief by suggesting that one will indulge only when it’s deserved. Similarly, people use other situational features to create boundaries on (and justification for) their indulgence; for example, people may be more likely to treat themselves to hedonic products on their birthdays (Thaler, 1985). Because people perceive birthdays and other special occasions to be rare occurrences (Pocheptsova, Labroo, & Dhar, 2010), it follows that they would believe that indulgence on a special occasion signals little about one’s self- control in everyday contexts (Kivetz & Zheng, 2006). Ironically, these special occasion purchases are not as rare as people assume; birthday presents, for example, are actually purchased quite frequently, but people tend to overspend on them because they feel atypical. A series of studies by Sussman and Alter (2012) showed that people are quite capable of accurately budgeting for “ordinary” purchases (e.g., grocery shopping for the week, eggs for an omelet) but spend significantly more than they expect on “exceptional” purchases (e.g., grocery shopping for a friend’s visit, eggs for
Easter). This discrepancy occurs because people are more likely to place special products in categories distinct from other purchases, and as a result they tend to overspend on these products. In one study, participants who were reminded of how 19
often they buy gifts chose to spend less on a birthday gift for a friend (normally an exceptional purchase) than those who were not explicitly reminded. This work suggests that people normally see indulgence as more appropriate for purchases that feel special and infrequent because these purchases fall outside of one’s normal budget.
In a related finding, people feel entitled to spend more time and money shopping for hedonic products when they can construe the shopping as goal-oriented, rather than for pleasure (Chiou & Ting, 2011). For example, a woman buying an expensive designer dress may feel more justified if she “needs” the dress for an upcoming formal event than if she does not have a specific shopping goal. Adding a goal to a hedonic shopping session allows people to enjoy the pleasurable aspects of shopping without the ensuing guilt (Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982; Kivetz & Zheng,
2006; Okada, 2005).
Another seemingly rare situation that justifies indulgence is an unexpected, one-time source of income, known as a windfall gain. In everyday life, income can come from many different sources – one’s salary, a birthday gift from a relative, or a
$20 bill on the sidewalk. According to the economic principle of fungibility, it should not make a difference where money comes from because all sources of income can be combined into a common pool. Nonetheless, people tend to organize their income into different “mental accounts” based on its source (Kivetz, 1999; Prelec & Loewenstein,
1998; Thaler, 1985). Individuals tend to “match” their purchases to an appropriate mental account – for example, they may be more likely to spend regular paychecks on 20
bills and necessities, but more likely to spend “special” income from a yearly bonus on something more extravagant (Thaler, 1999).
People are more likely to make frivolous impulse purchases when they acquire money unexpectedly – in other words, when they receive a windfall gain (Arkes et al.,
1994; O’Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001). For example, people were more willing to spend money on a new TV when they won it unexpectedly than when they worked overtime to earn it (Arkes et al., 1994). In line with this finding, Kivetz and Zheng (2006) argue that the main reason people prefer to use windfall money to make hedonic purchases is that windfall spending does not feel like it depletes one’s regular income. When money is earned unexpectedly, it is placed into a separate mental account from regular income; because it is not categorized as normal income, it feels appropriate to match it with unplanned and unnecessary purchases (O’Curry & Strahilevitz, 2001). The fact that consumers possess some intuitive knowledge of mental accounting suggests that they may strategically reorganize their mental accounts to create windfall money when they want to make a luxury purchase (Kivetz, 1999).
Committing to future indulgence. A third way consumers can reduce their guilt about hedonic purchases is through pre-commitment, which separates indulgence from its monetary cost. An example is when people pay in advance for an all-inclusive resort package; by the time they on vacation, they are already committed to indulging in the food, drinks, and entertainment that they previously paid for (Thaler, 1980). The temporal distance between payment and indulgence effectively “de-couples” the cost of the luxury good from its consumption (Kivetz, 1999; Prelec & Loewenstein, 1998;
Thaler, 1985). This de-coupling reduces the psychological “pain of paying” that comes 21
with financial loss. Hedonic purchases are particularly painful because the payment is more difficult to justify, so they benefit the most from pre-commitment (Prelec &
Loewenstein, 1998). This reduction in pain of paying helps explain why people are more likely to buy luxury products with credit than cash (Pettit & Sivanathan, 2010).
In a study by Kivetz and Simonson (2002b), some participants were asked to choose in advance between cash or an equally valuable luxury item (e.g., a massage or a fine bottle of wine) as a lottery prize. Because the lottery winner would not be determined until three months later, people were able to pre-commit to indulgence without feeling guilty; about 25% chose the luxury prize. This is in contrast to another condition where participants chose between a cash prize and a necessity prize (a gift certificate for groceries) and only 10% chose the necessity. The authors argue that people pre- commit because they realize that it is difficult to make luxury purchases; although a cash prize could always be spent on a luxury, people recognize that they will struggle to indulge in the future and, accordingly, pre-commit to the luxury prize. In a follow- up study, over 80% of people who chose the luxury prize over the cash prize cited some form of pre-commitment to indulgence as the reason behind their choice (Kivetz
& Simonson, 2002b). This suggests that pre-commitment is a technique that both consumers and marketers can use to encourage hedonic consumption.
Licensing indulgent purchases with virtuous behavior. A compelling reason to suspect that people see indulgent shopping as a morally questionable behavior is the fact that people often behave as if luxury purchases can be counterbalanced by traditionally moral behaviors like helping or donating to charity. People are more likely to indulge in luxury purchases (and avoid feeling guilty about them) if they have 22
previously engaged in moral behavior. This phenomenon is an example of moral licensing. Licensing is similar to the entitlement justification described earlier, but it provides justification through a slightly different mechanism – by positively altering the self-concept and effectively changing the meaning of indulgent choices. In other words, when people have established that they hold a given moral value (e.g., generosity), they seem to be less concerned that an indulgent purchase will reflect badly on their moral character.
Licensing has been demonstrated across a wide range of moral behaviors (see
Merritt, Effron, & Monin, 2010, for a review). In a typical study, participants who engage in a morally positive behavior are subsequently more willing to engage in a moral transgression. For example, people who purchased environmentally-friendly products were more likely to over-pay themselves for their participation (effectively stealing from the experimenter) than people who purchased morally neutral products
(Mazar & Zhong, 2010). It follows that if a given behavior increases in frequency when people have just done something morally positive, people probably see that behavior as a moral transgression. If acting moral licenses people to make more indulgent consumer choices, it adds further support to the idea that indulgence is a moralized behavior.
Khan and Dhar (2006) addressed this question directly by exploring the influence of prior moral behavior on people’s shopping preferences. Half of participants were asked to choose which of two hypothetical charities they would rather volunteer for. Although they did not actually do any volunteer work as part of the study, it seems as though the act of committing to a cause was enough to make 23
participants feel morally licensed. Next, all participants were asked to choose between two equally priced products: a luxury product (designer jeans) and a necessity (a vacuum cleaner). Participants who got to express a preference between the two charities were more likely to select the luxury item than those in the control condition.
This effect was mediated by a change in participants’ self-concepts, as measured by how much they rated themselves as sympathetic, compassionate, warm, and helpful.
People saw themselves as more moral after choosing one of the two charities, and this in turn made them more comfortable purchasing the designer jeans.
Strahilevitz and Myers (1998) demonstrated a similar effect in a study on the effectiveness of charitable donations as purchase incentives. Participants were presented with a choice between two equally valuable alternatives of the same type of product. The two products differed only in that one included a cash rebate and one included a donation to a charitable cause (e.g., “Save the Seals”). The two purchase incentives were attached to either practical products (e.g., laundry detergent) or frivolous products (e.g., concert tickets). The authors found that participants were more likely to select the product bundled with a charitable donation when they were choosing between two frivolous products. They attribute this result to “a type of affect-based complementarity in that the emotions created by the acquisition of the product … complement the good feelings derived from the contribution to charity”
(Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998, p.436). The fact that people behave as though frivolous purchases complement morally positive behavior strongly suggests that they see these purchases as morally reprehensible. When participants were able to simultaneously 24
give to charity and make a frivolous purchase, it seems as though they were able to mitigate the feelings of guilt associated with the purchase.
People are also able to license themselves to indulge through pre-commitment to future virtuous behavior. When people expect to make a utilitarian or healthy choice in the near future, they feel entitled to indulge in the present (Khan & Dhar, 2007).
Because people also tend to have optimistic expectations for their future behavior, the mere presence of a future option to act virtuously can license hedonic consumption.
For example, when participants in one study were offered the choice between an unhealthy snack (a chocolate chip cookie) and a healthy snack (a plain non-fat yogurt),
57% chose the unhealthy option. However, when participants were told that they would have an opportunity to make the same choice again in one week, the percent choosing the cookie rose significantly. Mediation analyses showed that this increase in indulgence was due to a decrease in guilt about the unhealthy snack, presumably because participants expected to balance their unhealthy choice today with a healthy one next time (Khan & Dhar, 2007). It seems likely that people are overly optimistic about their future behavior, and might strategically resolve to do better “next time” in order to enjoy a delicious snack or splurge on expensive shoes.
In summary, each of these types of justifications allows people to set boundaries on when they will give in to the temptations of hedonic goods; for example, licensing a luxury purchase through moral behavior implies that one will make such purchases only when one has been especially virtuous. Thus, these justifications may be partially directed at the self; people want to reassure themselves 25
that they are not frivolous by nature, and feel guilty about indulging unless and until they are able to do so.
From judging the self to judging others
Although the factors that influence hedonic purchase decisions are fairly well understood, less attention has been paid to people’s attitudes about others’ indulgence.
People are likely to condemn others’ indulgent purchases for all the same reasons that they feel guilty about their own: hedonic goods are harder to justify, they suggest a lack of self-control, they seem wasteful, etc. However, because others’ purchases should not make a third party observer feel guilty, corresponding guilt-reduction mechanisms do not automatically kick in. Thus, studying an observer’s perspective on indulgent shopping allows researchers a clear view of the negative associations people have with indulgent purchases when the mitigating effects of justification processes are absent.
The fact that people moralize indulgence lends support to my hypothesis that those who indulge will be seen as less virtuous than those who do spend more moderately. It is clear that a main reason people moralize hedonic spending is because they see it as a domain in which self-regulation is important; because of the inherent temptation present in hedonic goods, people require justification to place bounds on their indulgence. It follows that they would see someone who indulges for no (known) reason as lacking in self-control. If someone’s indulgence is not situationally constrained, people may infer that the indulger would have low self-control in a wide range of other situations, including those in which self-control is necessary to avoid interpersonal harm. For this reason, I believe that a target person’s perceived self- 26
control should mediate the link between her indulgence and her perceived trustworthiness. It remains to be seen whether the justification mechanisms that free people to indulge with impunity also influence their perception of other people. To better understand how people might form impressions of others based on their consumption choices, I now review relevant literature on interpersonal judgments of morality, trustworthiness, and personality more generally.
Forming impressions of personality and morality
Upon first meeting a new person, we automatically begin forming an impression of their personality (see Ambady & Skowronski, 2008, for a review). Most impression-formation processes occur so quickly that they are essentially subconscious. Because people often buy products in social contexts and display their material possessions publicly, purchase decisions are a salient cue that observers use to form impressions of personality. To understand how an observer will evaluate someone else’s consumption behavior, we must first understand why they think the target person bought the item in question. In other words, what attribution does the observer make for the actor’s purchase? Attribution theory has a long history in social psychology, and research in the field typically distinguishes two main types of attributions: dispositional and situational (e.g., Ross & Nisbett, 1991). If an observer believes that an actor’s behavior was caused by an internal, enduring trait of the actor
(e.g., personality traits, ability level, desires), she is making a dispositional attribution.
If an observer believes that an actor’s behavior was caused by something in the surrounding context (e.g., someone else’s behavior, the weather, an event earlier in the day), she is making a situational attribution. Dispositional and situational attributions 27
are also referred to as internal and external attributions, respectively (Jones & Davis,
1965; Kelley, 1973). People are motivated to explain events in the world around them, and shopping is no exception (Calder & Burnkrant, 1977; Mizerski, Golden, &
Kernan, 1979). Whether individuals attribute their own and others’ purchases to internal or external factors largely determines whether they will use consumer behavior to draw inferences about preferences and personality traits.
Shopping is a widespread and often very public behavior, so it should come as no surprise that people use consumption both to communicate aspects of their self- concepts and to make inferences about others. Most of the research on symbolic consumption focuses on the messages that people try to communicate through their consumption, a process known as symbolic encoding (Belk, Bahn, & Mayer, 1982;
Belk, Mayer, & Bahn, 1982; Holman, 1981). For the purposes of the present analysis, it is more pertinent to examine the more limited work on symbolic decoding – the meaning that observers ultimately take away from the symbolic aspects of others’ consumption (Belk, Bahn, et al., 1982). People regularly make inferences about a host of traits, including social status, age, sociability, and ambition, on the basis of a target person’s possessions (Shavitt & Nelson, 2000; Yoon, Gurhan-Canli, & Bozok, 2006).
This “language of expressive consumption” is so culturally pervasive that children as young as seven already show some understanding of the type of person who might own different types of cars and houses (Belk, Bahn, et al., 1982, p.4).
Much of the work on symbolic decoding focuses on very specific questions about consumption; for example, how does owning a Chevrolet Caprice vs. a
Chevrolet Camaro influence judgments of the driver’s sociability (Belk, Mayer, et al., 28
1982)? Nonetheless, some general theoretical claims have been made regarding attributions for consumer behavior. Drawing on classic attribution theory (Jones &
Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1973), Calder and Burnkrant (1977) attempt to apply some relevant principles of attribution to consumer behavior. Specifically, they argue that observers are likely to apply the principle of discounting when assessing personality on the basis of consumption; in other words, “a person is more likely to attribute an internal disposition or personal characteristic to an actor when there are no plausible external, alternative explanations for an act” (Calder & Burnkrant, 1977, p.31). This principle suggests a few likely outcomes. First, if a target person buys a product that is high in social desirability, observers are unlikely to make any inferences about the target on the basis of that purchase. There are several obvious external attributions available for such a purchase: the product is high quality or the shopper is just going along with the crowd. Strong personality inferences will only be made when consumers buy things that are highly distinctive (i.e., most people would not buy them). It is likely that luxury purchases would appear distinctive; although they are highly desirable, they are by nature special and exclusive (Berry, 1994). Second, observers are more likely to make dispositional attributions for a purchase when the target person chooses a product out of a larger set of possible options. For example, if a consumer chooses one lipstick out of a set of two, it may not say much about her preferences; if she chooses the same lipstick out of a hundred options, one can assume that she really likes it.
It seems intuitive that some purchases are more informative than others.
Shavitt and Nelson (2000) addressed this question directly in a series of studies. They 29
categorized products by the primary function they serve: utilitarian or social identity.
Utilitarian products’ main value is their ability to address a need. Some examples include painkillers, air conditioners, and vacuum cleaners. Social identity products, such as class rings and sports banners, are mainly consumed for self-expression purposes. It makes sense that social identity products should convey more about the people who buy them than utilitarian products; as one study showed, participants mostly generated personality traits (e.g., fun, successful, athletic) to describe hypothetical consumers of social identity goods. By contrast, participants mostly described consumers of utilitarian goods with transient needs (e.g., stressed, hot, has a headache) or demographics (e.g., older, works in an office, middle class). In a follow- up study, they showed that the favorability of a purchased product influences overall evaluations of a target when the product is related to social identity but not when it is utilitarian. Unfortunately, this intriguing result is somewhat problematic because one of the unfavorable social identity products (a University of Michigan banner – the rival school of the study participants) may have elicited such strong negative reactions that it overwhelmed the effect of the other products.
Note that Shavitt and Nelson’s definition of utilitarian products is more or less the same as the one used in other behavioral marketing research. However, instead of pitting utilitarian goods against hedonic goods, they contrast utilitarian products with those that serve the specific purpose of self-expression. Although some of the products they categorized under “social identity” were hedonic goods (e.g., gourmet coffee), it is difficult to draw any direct conclusions about reactions to hedonic vs. utilitarian goods. However, due to the more discretionary nature of hedonic purchases, it seems 30
likely observers are more likely to draw inferences from hedonic products than utilitarian ones.
Despite the wealth of research on the encoding and decoding of symbolic consumption, little work to date has explored the inferences that observers might draw about a target consumer’s moral character. The public outrage over John Edwards’ haircuts certainly suggests that people do make such inferences. One paper provides some evidence that chronic self-indulgence, specifically in the domain of food choice, is associated with immorality. Steim and Nemeroff (1995) presented participants with the profile of an imaginary person and manipulated the types of food that the person allegedly ate “most regularly” (p. 484). The target either ate healthy foods (fruit, salad, whole wheat bread, chicken, and potatoes) or unhealthy foods (steak, hamburgers,
French fries, doughnuts, and ice cream sandwiches). Overall, participants saw the less healthy target as less moral and less likeable. In line with my predictions about self- control, this difference was partly explained by perceptions of the target’s self- discipline. However, a key difference between this work and mine is that Steim and
Nemeroff explicitly told participants that the target person indulged regularly, whereas
I am interested in people’s reactions to a single instance of indulgence. As I described earlier, indulgence is usually not problematic unless it becomes a frequent occurrence.
Also, given the historical Protestant condemnation of drug and alcohol abuse, it is not surprising that people react negatively to those who seem unable to control bad habits that compromise their physical health, like overeating (Rozin, 1999). Thus, the present research represents a potentially counterintuitive extension of Steim and Nemeroff’s 31
by showing that even a single example of indulgence can influence interpersonal judgments.
A somewhat larger body of research focuses on morality judgments related to wealth and social class. Wealth and indulgence are undoubtedly related – those who have the means to indulge are more likely to do so – but they are conceptually distinct.
Although most of my studies will control for the income of the person being evaluated, it is still worth reviewing the research on affluence and morality because perceived indulgence may well play a role in negative evaluations of those who flaunt their wealth. Research on perceptions of the affluent also suggests that people who indulge may also benefit from positive associations with social status, power, and competence.
Affluence and personality stereotypes
A series of papers by Christopher and colleagues showed that appearances of affluence can inspire both favorable and unfavorable personality judgments in observers (Christopher & Schlenker, 2000; Christopher, Westerhof, & Marek, 2005;
Christopher, Morgan, et al., 2005). Participants were presented with a vignette describing a man or woman’s typical evening at home. Within the vignette, many features of the person’s home and activities were manipulated to give the impression that the target was either affluent (e.g., owns a condominium, eats steak, relaxes in a
Jacuzzi) or not so affluent (e.g. rents an apartment, eats chicken, takes a bath).
Although the target’s income was not specified, a manipulation check confirmed that participants thought the more affluent target made more money than the less affluent target. Participants then rated the target on a wide range of personality dimensions. 32
Consistent with perceived high social status, affluent targets were thought to be more sophisticated (successful, cultured, has a lot of friends) and have greater personal ability (intelligent, hard working, organized) (Christopher & Schlenker, 2000).
However, being wealthy was not without interpersonal costs; affluent targets were also seen as less considerate (kind, likeable, honest). Also, in a study testing the effect of affluence on ratings of the Big Five personality dimensions, wealthy people were rated as less agreeable (Christopher, Morgan, et al., 2005). People also thought higher-income individuals were less likely to help others, particularly in casual helping situations (Christopher, Westerhof, et al., 2005). These variations in perceived altruism may well be based in real-world differences between the rich and poor; work by Piff and colleagues showed that wealthier individuals donate a smaller proportion of their income to charity and are more likely to behave unethically across a wide range of situations (Piff, Kraus, Côté, Cheng, & Keltner, 2010; Piff, Stancato, Côté,
Mendoza-Denton, & Keltner, 2012).
The evolutionary literature suggests that, beyond merely influencing character judgments, conspicuous consumption of luxury goods may yield tangible social benefits. A person who displays expensive goods is signaling that he has the resources to purchase such goods, a phenomenon known as “costly signaling” (Bliege Bird &
Smith, 2005; Nelissen & Meijers, 2011). Evolutionary theorists argue that, just as a male bird of paradise is willing to bear the costs of displaying his plumage to a potential mate (e.g., higher visibility to predators, energy expended in a courtship dance) in return for potential reproductive gains, people invest resources in products that do not have much functional benefit but serve to convey social status to those 33
around them. Although many luxury products afford functional and hedonic benefits relative to non-luxury alternatives, those that are publicly conspicuous and have clear status associations have the further benefit of signaling one’s material wealth.
Nelissen and Meijers (2011) set out to demonstrate that luxury brand logos did in fact yield the interpersonal benefits that costly signaling theory would suggest. In one study, they presented participants with a photo of a confederate wearing a polo shirt. The confederate was held constant, but the photo was doctored so that the polo had no logo, a non-luxury brand logo, or a luxury brand logo. Participants rated the luxury-brand target as more wealthy and high-status than the other two targets (ratings of his attractiveness, likability, and trustworthiness did not vary by condition). They further found that this difference in perceived status had financial benefits for those sporting branded clothing: confederates wearing clothes with luxury-brand logos received more generous offers in a dictator game and received more donations when soliciting door-to-door for a charitable cause.
In the previous section, I focused on the negative associations people tend to have with indulgence: most see indulgent goods as vices, experience guilt when indulging, and feel the need to limit their indulgence to justifiable situations. I predict that these negative associations will carry over into interpersonal judgments, such that people who indulge will be seen as less moral and lower in self-control than those who do not indulge. However, as just described, products that convey social status (i.e., luxury or high-end products) can make their owners appear more powerful, competent, and successful (Christopher & Schlenker, 2000; Nelissen & Meijers, 2011). These positive effects do not necessarily contradict the hypothesized negative relationship 34
between indulgence and morality; rather, the dimensions of competence (also referred to as personal agency) and morality (communality) are often thought to be orthogonal
(Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007; Todorov, Said, Engell, & Oosterhof, 2008; Wojciszke,
2005).
Judging moral character
Many psychologists have argued that one of the most important and fundamental judgments we must make about others is whether or not we can trust them; in other words, we must evaluate their moral character (e.g., Fiske, Cuddy, &
Glick, 2007; Hamlin, Wynn, & Bloom, 2007; Pizarro & Tannenbaum, 2011;
Wojciszke, Bazinska, & Jaworski, 1998). Trust has been defined as "the willingness to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations about another’s behavior" (Dunn
& Schweitzer, 2005, p.736).
The centrality of trust to impression formation is supported by the fact that judgments of trustworthiness can be reliably made after less than 100ms exposure to a face (Todorov, Pakrashi, & Oosterhof, 2009) and trustworthiness is a good approximation of the overall valence people associate with a given face (Todorov et al., 2008). Given our species’ social nature, it makes sense that we would have evolved a mechanism to quickly detect those who might behave antisocially or otherwise take advantage of other members of their community (Gintis, Henrich,
Bowles, Boyd, & Fehr, 2008).
Because of this powerful motivation to assess moral character, people may be especially likely to fall victim to the correspondence bias in judgments about morality; in other words, they may be more likely to make inferences about enduring moral 35
traits on the basis of isolated behaviors. Research on character-based moral judgments
(as opposed to act-based moral judgments) suggests that once one has evaluated someone’s moral character, that evaluation colors future judgments of that person’s morality, even when it should be irrelevant (Pizarro & Tannenbaum, 2011). For example, a young man who gets into a car accident while rushing home to hide cocaine from his parents is seen as more blameworthy than a young man who commits the same transgression while rushing home to hide an anniversary present, presumably because his reason for rushing affects judgments of his character (Alicke, 1992). Thus, relatively harmless acts that signal something about a target person’s moral character can have a bigger influence on judgments of that person’s future behavior than more severe but less informative transgressions (Tannenbaum, Uhlmann, & Diermeier,
2011). For example, Tannenbaum and colleagues (2011) found that when a CEO requested a particularly frivolous item as a signing bonus (a $40,000 marble table with his face carved in it), participants rated him as having less integrity than a CEO who asked for an equivalent cash bonus. This difference was mediated by the fact that participants saw the frivolous request as more informative about the CEO’s character than the cash request. It follows that, in so far as indulgent purchases and possessions communicate more about a person’s personality, they will carry more weight in judgments of that person’s moral character across situations. As I described earlier, products vary in their “social expressiveness” (Shavitt & Nelson, 2000). Because indulgent products are purchased out of desire rather than necessity, they are more likely to speak to their owner’s underlying preferences; thus, it makes sense that they would be stronger cues to moral integrity and trustworthiness than utilitarian products. 36
Self-control as a trustworthiness cue. As I discussed earlier, I believe that one of the main personality traits that observers are likely to infer from unjustified indulgence is a lack of self-control. In turn, I expect perceived self-control to affect perceived trustworthiness. It makes sense that low self-control should raise a red flag about someone’s moral character because self-control is often a key component of ethical behavior. In many situations, people must resist the temptation to promote their own self-interest over the good of their group, and research suggests that the same self-control processes govern tradeoffs between individual and collective interests and tradeoffs between short- and long-term goals (Dewitte & De Cremer, 2001).
Baumeister has gone so far as to suggest that self-control is the essence of morality; in various works, he refers to self-control as the “moral muscle” and “master virtue” and argues that good self-control underlies all other moral virtues (Baumeister & Exline,
1999; Baumeister & Vonasch, 2012; Geyer & Baumeister, 2005). Indeed, most behaviors that are widely considered moral require self-regulation; to be moral, people must inhibit their impulse to engage in proscribed behaviors (e.g., stealing, cheating) and actively motivate themselves to engage in virtuous behaviors (e.g., helping, sharing) (Janoff-Bulman, Sheikh, & Hepp, 2009; Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010).
Thus, although resisting the urge to splurge on designer shoes or chow down on a piece of chocolate cake is a relatively low-stakes exercise of self-control, someone who can effectively resist indulging in order to pursue a long-term goal such as financial wellbeing or personal health may also be better able to put aside their own interests and behave altruistically in an interpersonal setting. 37
Real-world evidence suggests that self-control can in fact be a highly accurate cue to people’s ability to adhere to societal guidelines and achieve positive life outcomes. The classic “marshmallow” study by Shoda, Mischel, and Peake (1990) showed that children who were able to delay gratification (i.e., resist an immediate small reward in favor of a larger delayed reward) could better manage stress and frustration in adolescence and scored higher on the SAT. Similarly, higher self-control predicts better high-school grades, peer relationships, and emotional adjustment
(Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004). A longitudinal study that followed 1000 children in Dunedin, New Zealand, from birth to age 32 found significant relationships between self-control and a striking variety of important life outcomes (Moffitt et al.,
2011). Those who scored lower on self-control around age 5 suffered serious setbacks; they dropped out of high school at a higher rate, were more likely to have a teen pregnancy, were more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol, saved less for retirement, suffered more health problems, made less money, and were more likely to be convicted of a crime, among many others. These correlations held even when controlling for participants’ childhood SES and IQ. This longitudinal data adds to a body of literature that implicates self-control as a key predictor of delinquent and criminal behavior (Caspi, Moffitt, Silva, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1994; Wright, Caspi,
Moffitt, & Paternoster, 2004).
The long-term correlates of self-control suggest that people probably should use self-control as a cue to trustworthiness, but do they actually do so? Research suggests that they do. Among school-age boys, a child’s self-control was positively related to his peer-rated trustworthiness, and perceived trustworthiness in turn 38
predicted his teacher-rated school adjustment (Betts & Rotenberg, 2007). Research by
Righetti and Finkenauer (2011) provides additional direct evidence that people readily judge others’ trustworthiness based on their self-control. In one study, participants had to decide how much money to send to their partner in a classic economic trust game
(Berg, Dickhaut, & McCabe, 1995a). In this game, sending more money puts one at greater risk of exploitation by a selfish partner. Thus, sending more money is a sign of more trust in one’s partner. Participants who were led to believe that their partner had just completed a mentally depleting task sent less money, and this effect was mediated by their perceptions of their partner’s state self-control. The authors argue that self- control signals trustworthiness not because it says anything about a person’s benevolence or moral integrity. Rather, it provides information about a person’s ability to follow through with prosocial goals. In other words, knowing that someone has good intentions is not enough to engender trust; one must also be assured that they have the self-control to act on those intentions. Similarly, I believe indulgence is not seen as a sign of malicious intent, but as a sign of a person’s dependability in situations that require self-regulation.
In summary, past research has shown show that people form judgments about others on the basis of their consumer choices. Specifically, people tend to see people with more expensive possessions as more competent but less warm, though this relationship could have been explained by inferences about the targets’ social class.
People are driven to evaluate moral character when they form first impressions of others, and self-control is one cue they use to determine trustworthiness. If, as I predict, indulgence is a cue to low self-control, it follows that self-control should 39
mediate the tendency for people who own luxury products to appear less moral. It should also be the case that when situational factors make indulgent purchases more or less informative about someone’s self-control, there should be a corresponding change in people’s tendency to infer moral character from those purchases. In a final section of this literature review, I focus on the factors that might weaken (moderate) or strengthen (amplify) the relationship between indulgence and self-control.
Moderators and amplifiers of the link between indulgence and self-control
I have argued that people infer self-control from others’ indulgence and, as a result, have low expectations about the target’s ability to exercise self-control in general, including in situations with moral stakes. Here I propose that this tendency to draw dispositional inferences may be weakened when there is reason to believe that indulgence was motivated by situational factors. By contrast, people may be more inclined to make broad inferences about self-control when they know that the target indulged in violation of an explicit goal (e.g., to lose weight or stick to a budget).
Situational bounds on indulgence
In my earlier discussion of consumer justification, I reviewed a host of strategies that allow people to indulge without feeling guilty. I argue that most of these strategies share the feature of situational limitation; in other words, indulging only in justifiable situations should sever the link between indulgence and poor self-control in situations more generally. Although people are quite adept at licensing their own indulgence, will they consider the same justifications when evaluating others’ indulgence? On the one hand, people are somewhat sensitive to situational factors when making attributions for someone’s behavior (Jones & Davis, 1965). On the other 40
hand, people tend to underweight the importance of the situation when judging others, and are quick to draw dispositional inferences on the basis of single acts, even when the situation is in fact exerting a strong influence on behavior (Gilbert & Malone,
1995). Also, people are motivated to make positive attributions for their own behavior, but may not be so generous when it comes to explaining others’ behavior (e.g., Brown,
1986; Kruger & Gilovich, 2004; Kunda, 1990). This general self-serving bias suggests that people may be willing to work harder to find justifications for their own behavior than others’. The process of accounting for situational factors is effortful, and people may not engage in it unless motivated to do so (Gilbert, Pelham, & Krull, 1988). In the context of indulgent purchases, it seems likely that people will give less weight to situational justifications when considering the appropriateness of others’ purchases than they typically do for their own. The impact of situational explanations for indulgence (e.g., special occasions) is likely to be small; however, it remains to be seen whether these factors have any impact at all on judgments of others.
Goal pursuit and goal failure
As I described at length previously in this paper, the pursuit of long-term goals almost always requires forgoing immediate gratification. Thus, goal pursuit is one domain in which self-regulation plays an essential role (Myrseth & Fishbach, 2009), and one’s ability to adhere to stated goals should be an obvious cue to one’s general self-control. For example, in one study, a person who said he was trying to save for his education but then “ended up buying many new CDs” was rated as having lower self- control than someone who had the same goal but resisted the urge to buy new music
(Righetti & Finkenauer, 2011, p.886). To our knowledge, however, no research has 41
manipulated the presence of explicit goals in interpersonal judgments of behaviors that typically represent self-regulation failure, such as indulging in unhealthy food or buying luxury products. For example, although most people chronically have the goal of maintaining their wealth and not overspending (Hirschman, 1990), do they automatically assume that others are striving towards a similar goal? If they do, then adding an explicit goal of non-indulgence to a scenario in which a target person indulges should not affect judgments of that target’s self-control. However, I predict that making self-control failure explicit by showing a concrete situation in which a person is unable to adhere to a goal should lead observers to draw even stronger inferences about self-control.
If, as I predict, explicit non-indulgence goals amplify people’s tendency to associate indulgence with poor self-control, what would explain their tendency to make similar (albeit weaker) self-control judgments when goals are not salient?
Because prescriptive norms dictate self-restraint in the face of behaviors with potential long-term costs, such as reckless spending or overeating (Khan et al., 2005), non- indulgence goals may be automatically accessible when people are evaluating product choices. Thus, even when a person has not declared her intention to forgo indulgence, the fact that she is unable to inhibit indulgence should still lead to doubts about her ability to exercise self-control in other situations.
The Present Research
My work attempts to make a novel contribution to several areas of social psychology and behavioral marketing research. First, I add to the somewhat limited body of work on how purchases affect observers’ impressions of a target person – 42
otherwise known as symbolic decoding (Calder & Burnkrant, 1977; Shavitt & Nelson,
2000). Little research has looked at how consumer choice can influence perceptions of moral character, but it seems clear that indulgent purchases can (unintentionally) communicate negative messages about one’s morality, particularly in the current economic climate. The present studies will also contribute to the literature on hedonic purchases. This work has primarily focused on consumer choices in a first-person context, and has articulated many factors that influence people’s willingness to indulge in hedonic products. However, no one has yet studied whether people’s reservations about unjustified indulgence translate into negative evaluations of others who indulge. The proposed research will also contribute to the literature on character- based moral judgment (Pizarro & Tannenbaum, 2011) by showing that people use consumer choices as a cue to moral character.
A summary of my hypotheses is below:
H1: Targets who indulge will be seen as lower in prosocial moral traits such as generosity, honesty, and trustworthiness than targets who do not indulge.
H2: Targets who indulge will be seen as lower in self-control than targets who do not indulge.
H3: The difference in perceived self-control (H2) will mediate the link between indulgence and morality / trustworthiness (H1).
H4: The effect of indulgence on perceived self-control will be moderated by whether or not the indulgence occurs in a specific, infrequent context, such as a special occasion.
H5: The effect of indulgence on perceived self-control will be amplified when the target explicitly states a goal of not indulging.
43
Outline of studies
I conducted eight empirical studies to test these hypotheses about the relationship between indulgence and morality. In Studies 1a and 1b, I show that people see those who own luxury products as less moral and more irresponsible, but also more agentic. In Study 1c, I show that the relationship between indulgence and morality is mediated by judgments of the target’s self-control. Study 2 replicates the morality and self-control effects, and shows that indulgence affects more than just judgments about personality; those who indulge are also expected to fare worse in life overall, and this difference in life outcomes is mediated by perceived self-control.
Study 3 shows that indulgence can affect perceptions of a target’s self-control and trustworthiness in real-world situations with financial consequences. Study 4 tests whether the negative effects of indulgence are specific to situations where self-control is relevant. Study 5 investigates whether people’s inferences about the implications of indulgence for dispositional self-control will be moderated by situational explanations for the indulgence. Finally, Study 6 shows that people who indulge in violation of an explicit goal are judged more negatively than people who do not declare an intention to resist temptation.
Studies 1a, 1b, and 1c: You Are What You Drive?
Studies 1a-c tested the basic hypothesis that people who observe a target in possession of a relatively indulgent product will draw negative inferences about that person’s morality, relative to a target associated with a less indulgent version of the same product. 44
In each study, participants read short profiles of several target people and then rated them on a series of personality traits. Information about the three targets’ income and other demographic factors was held constant, but the brand of car they ostensibly owned varied. One target (always presented first) owned a control item that was not a car. In Study 1a, participants rated two more targets, one who owned a luxury car and one who owned a non-luxury car. The order of the two car-owning targets was counterbalanced. In Studies 1b and 1c, participants rated only one additional target who was randomized to own a luxury or non-luxury car.
I predicted that participants would rate luxury car owners lower on positive moral traits (e.g., generous, moral, trustworthy) and higher on items related to lack of self-control (e.g., irresponsible, lazy), relative to targets who owned neutral cars. In
Study 1c, I explicitly measured perceived self-control of the target, and predicted that self-control would mediate the relationship between indulgence and positive moral traits.
Study 1a
Method
Participants. Participants were 73 Stanford undergraduates (37 female). Some participated in return for course credit (43%) and some were recruited through
Stanford’s psychology participant pool and were entered in a lottery for a $50 gift certificate to an online retailer. All participants completed the study online.
Procedure. Participants were told that the purpose of the study was to investigate how possessions affect perceptions of a person’s personality. I presented them with three items, one at a time, and asked them to imagine the typical Stanford 45
student who would own each item. After each item was presented, participants had 20 seconds to form a mental image of the typical person who might own it. Only after 20 seconds had elapsed could they advance to the next page of the survey.
Next, participants rated the typical owner of the item (the target) on a number of personality dimensions. First, they rated the target on the Big Five personality traits using the 10-item version of the Big Five Inventory (the TIPI; Gosling, Rentfrow, &
Swann, 2003). Then they rated the target on 10 traits designed to reflect the dimensions of agency – intelligent, powerful, and successful – and morality – honest, generous, moral, friendly, trustworthy, irresponsible (reverse-coded), and lazy
(reverse-coded). For each of these traits, participants indicated how much the trait applied to the target on a five-point scale, ranging from not at all to extremely. I included an indulgence manipulation check trait (self-indulgent) with the 10 traits, yielding a total list of 11 traits that were presented in randomized order. Finally, participants rated how much they would trust the target to give a group presentation on their behalf, how likely the target would be to not do their fair share of work on a group project, and how likely the target would be to donate to a charity if approached on the street. Each of these hypothetical scenarios was rated on a bipolar 7-point scale with endpoints appropriate for the question (e.g., from very unlikely to very likely).
Each participant rated the owners of three items. I included a warm-up item to give participants a chance to practice imagining a hypothetical person and rating their personality. Accordingly, I chose an item that I thought would elicit relatively strong judgments about its owner’s personality traits: a Bible. 46
After imagining and rating the typical Stanford student who owns a Bible, participants moved on to the main part of the study. I asked them to rate two additional students, both of whose possessions were cars. One target owned a luxury car (either a
Mercedes-Benz, BMW, or Lexus) and one owned a neutral car (Toyota, Honda, or
Hyundai). The car makes were pretested to ensure that people did reliably categorize the luxury brands as luxury (95%) and neutral brands as non-luxury (86%). All cars were described as silver 4-door sedans, to control for any personality inferences participants might draw from car style or color. Participants always saw one luxury car owner and one neutral car owner, but the order of the targets was counterbalanced and the specific car brands were randomized. While participants were visualizing the typical owner of each car, they were shown a picture of a car of that brand. The cars shown were always 4-door silver sedans (see Appendix item 1 for a screenshot of one target’s profile).
After completing the personality ratings, participants indicated their gender, race, and whether they own a car. Finally, they completed the Protestant Work Ethic
(PWE) scale, an 11-item scale which measures endorsement of Protestant ideals about hard work and self-discipline (e.g., Anyone who is willing and able to work hard has a good chance of succeeding) (Mirels & Garrett, 1971).
Results
Because our study had a within-subjects design in which all participants saw both a luxury-car target and a neutral-car target, all t-tests reported below are paired t- tests. 47
Manipulation check. I manipulated the type of car that each target owned in the hopes of also manipulating the target’s perceived self-indulgence. A t-test confirmed that our manipulation was successful; those who owned luxury cars were rated as more self-indulgent (M = 3.51, SD = 1.02) than those who owned neutral cars (M =
2.26, SD = .88), t (69) = 8.43, p < .001.
Car brands. Within luxury and neutral car groups, specific car brands did not significantly affect ratings of the target’s personality. Accordingly, I collapsed across car brands for all subsequent analyses.
TIPI ratings. Following Gosling et al. (2003), I averaged participants’ responses on the appropriate TIPI items to obtain a measure of each of the Big Five personality traits – extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, and openness to experience. Each of the Big Five trait measures was an average of the relevant two TIPI items, one of which was always reverse-coded. For example, the measure of target extraversion was a composite of the two items corresponding to extraversion: “extraverted, enthusiastic” and “reserved, quiet” (reverse-coded).
Participants’ ratings of the targets supported my most basic hypothesis that people make personality inferences based on possessions. Paired t-tests revealed that the indulgent target was seen as more extraverted, less agreeable, less conscientious, and more neurotic than the non-indulgent target (see Table 1 for means, SDs, and paired t values). The two targets did not differ in their perceived openness to experience.
Morality / agency ratings. I selected the ten traits and three scenarios that participants rated after the TIPI with the goal of capturing several key personality 48
dimensions. First, I included seven traits and one scenario that corresponded to prosocial behavior, a dimension I labeled morality. These seven traits (moral, friendly, generous, trustworthy, honest, irresponsible - reversed, and lazy - reversed) and one scenario (donating to charity) demonstrated good internal reliability (α = .75 for luxury car owners and .77 for neutral car owners), so I averaged them into a composite measure. I expected that indulgence would be associated with immorality; accordingly, I predicted that participants would rate indulgent targets lower on morality than non-indulgent targets. This hypothesis (H1) was supported (see Table 1).
Second, I included the traits successful, powerful, and intelligent, to tap into impressions of the targets’ personal agency, a dimension often considered orthogonal to communal traits like prosociality (Wojciszke, 2005). I collapsed these three traits into an agency composite (α = .82 for both targets). Because luxury products are associated with an abundance of resources (Berry, 1994; Khan et al., 2005) and often connote high social status (Nelissen & Meijers, 2011), I predicted that those who own luxury cars would be seen as more agentic than those who do not. Again, the results supported this hypothesis (see Table 1). This finding, in combination with the fact that luxury car owners were seen as more extraverted, suggests that the effect of indulgence is not merely a negative halo effect (Steim & Nemeroff, 1995). Rather, indulgence selectively lowered judgments of responsibility and morality.
Hypothetical scenario ratings. I included questions about the targets’ behavior in two hypothetical scenarios that I hoped would further illuminate participants’ impressions. These two scenarios did not hang together well with the agency and 49
morality items, so I analyzed them individually. Participants were less likely to trust the indulgent target to give a presentation on their behalf, which makes sense given that they also perceived that target as less moral. The two targets were seen as equally likely to do their fair share of the work on a group project (see Table 1).
Demographics. Gender, age, and car ownership did not influence ratings of the targets and will not be discussed further.
Protestant Work Ethic. I predicted that people who more strongly endorsed the
PWE (i.e., those who scored higher on the PWE scale) would more strongly condemn indulgent products (Uhlmann et al., 2011), and would thus show greater differences in their judgments of the two targets. To test this prediction, I first created an average
PWE score for each participant by averaging the 11 items of the PWE scale (α = .68).
Then I ran repeated measures ANOVAs for each of our dependent variables, using target as a repeated measure and PWE as a continuous between-subjects covariate.
Though I did find significant interactions between PWE and target on several of our dependent measures, they were the opposite of what I expected. Specifically, for extraversion (interaction F (1, 70) = 6.53, p < .05), agreeableness (F (1, 70) = 4.90, p
< .05), conscientiousness (F (1, 70) = 8.33, p < .01), and irresponsibility (F (1, 70) =
4.18, p < .05), participants who were lower in PWE tended to rate the targets most differently (not participants higher in PWE, as I predicted). In each case, the main effect of target type (indulgent vs. non-indulgent) remained significant, and there was not a main effect of PWE. 50
This result was puzzling, but I thought that perhaps two forces were operating in parallel for participants high in PWE. Traditionally, those who endorse the PWE condemn indulgence but also believe that material wealth (so long as it is earned through hard work) is a sign that someone has succeeded professionally and spiritually
(Uhlmann et al., 2011; Weber, 2008). It’s possible that the positive associations high-
PWE participants had with status and material wealth counterbalanced their negative associations with indulgence (which seem to be shared by those lower in PWE). In any case, I included PWE in subsequent studies in order to further explore its relationship with our indulgence manipulation.
Study 1b
Study 1b was nearly identical to Study 1a, but improved upon the study design in several ways. First, I used a more representative sample by recruiting participants from the Mechanical Turk online subject pool. Second, I switched to a between- subjects design in which participants rated only one target who was randomly assigned to own either a luxury or neutral car; this helped control for the possibility that the effects I observed in Study 1a were driven by a contrast between the two cars that participants saw or by experimental demand brought on by the obvious pairing of a luxury car and a neutral car. Third, I matched luxury-car and neutral-car owners’ income and other demographic variables. Finally, I changed the warm-up item from a
Bible to a mountain bike to avoid priming any concepts related to the Protestant ethic before participants rated the car owners. 51
Method
Participants. Participants were 94 United States residents (53 female; median age = 37) recruited through the Mechanical Turk online subject pool. They received
$.50 for their participation. All participants completed the study online.
Procedure. Procedure was the same as Study 1a, with a few exceptions.
Instead of imagining that each target was a Stanford student, participants were given information about each target’s age, marital status, number of children, and income.
These demographic factors were randomized within a small range between targets, to allow us to match targets without sacrificing believability. Each target was described as a person between 40 and 49 years old, married, with 2 children and an income between $75,500 and $78,500. As in Study 1a, each target also owned the warm-up object (a silver mountain bike), a luxury car, or a neutral car (see Appendix item 2 for a screenshot of one target’s profile). Unlike in Study 1a, participants only rated two targets: the warm-up profile and one of the two car owner profiles. Participants were randomly assigned to receive a luxury car owner or a neutral car owner as their second target.
As in Study 1a, participants spent 20 seconds imagining the target’s personality, rated the target on the TIPI and the 10 morality / agency traits, and predicted the target’s behavior in three hypothetical scenarios. These measures were the same as in Study 1a, except that I replaced the item about trusting the target to give a presentation on your behalf (which I thought might be less relevant to a non-student population and might also confound trustworthiness and competence) with one about whether the target would keep or return a wallet they found in a store. After rating 52
both targets, participants completed demographic measures, including a new question assessing their socioeconomic status, and the PWE scale.
Results
Manipulation check. The effectiveness of the indulgence manipulation was confirmed; the target who owned a luxury car was seen as more self-indulgent (M =
5.39, SD = 1.31) than the target who owned a neutral car (M = 2.94, SD = 1.42), t (92)
= -8.67, p < .001.
Car brands. As in Study 1a, specific car brands did not significantly affect ratings of the target’s personality. Accordingly, I collapsed across car brands for all subsequent analyses.
TIPI ratings. As in the previous study, I created composite variables to represent the Big Five personality traits, following the guidelines of Gosling et al.
(2003). Luxury car owners were rated as significantly more extraverted and more open to experience, while neutral car owners were rated as more agreeable. The two targets did not differ in perceived conscientiousness or neuroticism (see Table 2 for means,
SDs, and t values). With a few slight variations, these results replicate the Big Five findings from Study 1a.
Morality / agency ratings. Using the same combinations of traits as in Study
1a, I created composites that captured the personality dimensions of morality (α = .91) and agency (α = .81). The only difference was that the morality composite now included the new item about returning a wallet found in a store. 53
As predicted, the luxury car owner was seen as less moral than the neutral car owner. Also, in line with previous work (e.g., Nelissen & Meijers, 2011), indulgence did not have universally negative connotations: luxury car owners were also rated as more agentic than neutral car owners (see Table 2).
Hypothetical scenario rating. Across conditions, participants saw the target person as equally likely to slack off while working on a group project (see Table 2).
Demographics. Participant gender, age, SES, and car ownership did not influence ratings of the target’s morality.
Protestant Work Ethic. Although the results in Study 1a were not in line with our original predictions about the role of PWE, I again expected that people who more strongly endorsed the PWE (i.e., those who scored higher on the PWE scale) would more strongly condemn indulgent products. This time, PWE did not interact with the indulgence manipulation on any of my dependent measures. However, there were significant main effects of PWE on ratings of the target’s morality and agency.
Specifically, regardless of which condition they were in, people who were higher in
PWE rated the target as more moral (F(1, 91) = 4.35, p < .05) and more agentic (F(1,
90) = 7.17, p < .01). In both cases, the main effect of indulgence remained significant when PWE was included in the model. Although this tendency for high-PWE participants to rate targets more positively is interesting, it was not what I expected to find and it is not relevant to my main hypotheses. Therefore, I did not investigate this pattern further.
Overall, the absence of interactions between target and PWE cast doubt on the meaningfulness of the interactions I observed in Study 1a. It is possible that there was 54
something about the population used in Study 1a (Stanford students) that produced an anomalous result.
Study 1c
Study 1c was identical to Study 1b, with the addition of three new items. First,
I explicitly asked participants to rate each target’s self-control, and predicted that self- control would mediate the link between indulgence and morality judgments.
Specifically, I predicted that people in the luxury condition would see the target as having lower self-control, and that this decrease in perceived self-control would at least partially explain the decrease in perceived morality that I had observed in Studies
1a and 1b. Second, I had participants rate the target on the trait “competent,” with a plan to include it in the agency composite. Third, as an exploratory measure, I asked participants to indicate their political orientation. I did not have strong predictions regarding political orientation, but, if anything, I thought that liberals would judge luxury car owners more negatively than conservatives.
Method
Participants. Participants were 81 United States residents (56 female; median age = 31) recruited through the Mechanical Turk online subject pool. They received
$.50 for their participation. All participants completed the study online.
Procedure. Procedure was identical to Study 1b. The new trait (competence) was randomized along with the 10 traits we used in Studies 1a and 1b. The new question about self-control (When it comes to temptation, how good is Person X at exercising self-control? with answers on a 7-point scale from very bad to very good) came after the three hypothetical scenario questions. 55
Results
Car brands. As in Study 1a and 1b, specific car brands did not significantly affect ratings of the target’s personality. Accordingly, I collapsed across car brands for all subsequent analyses.
Manipulation check. Participants in the luxury car condition saw the target as more self-indulgent (M = 5.67, SD = 1.01) than in the neutral car condition (M = 3.44,
SD = 1.42), t(79) = 7.89, p < .001.
TIPI ratings. I combined the TIPI items into composites for each of the Big
Five personality dimensions (Gosling et al., 2003). This time, the targets differed significantly on all five dimensions except conscientiousness (see Table 3 for means,
SDs, and t values). Luxury car owners were seen as more extraverted, less agreeable, more neurotic, and more open to experience than neutral car owners. The TIPI results followed the same general pattern as in Studies 1a and 1b.
Morality / agency ratings. Using the same combinations of traits as in Studies
1a and 1b, with the addition of “competence” to the agency composite, I created composites that captured the personality dimensions of morality (α = .81) and agency
(α = .84).
My findings replicated those from Studies 1a and 1b. Participants rated the indulgent target as less moral and more agentic than the non-indulgent target (see
Table 3). These findings are consistent with my hypothesis that those who indulge are seen as less moral and less responsible, but also show that those who buy luxury 56
products could still benefit from the agency associations that go along with luxury products.
Self-control. As I predicted in H2, indulgent targets were perceived as worse at exercising self-control than non-indulgent targets (see Table 3). Following the bootstrapping guidelines set out by Preacher and Hayes (2004), I conducted a mediation analysis to test whether self-control explained the relationship between indulgence and perceived morality. The 95% confidence interval for the indirect effect
([-0.37, -0.11]) did not include zero, which indicates that self-control was a significant mediator.
Demographics. Participant age, political orientation, SES, gender, and car ownership did not influence ratings of the targets and will not be discussed further.
Protestant Work Ethic. As in Study 1b, I observed main effects of PWE on the target’s perceived agency and morality, but PWE did not interact with the indulgence manipulation. In both conditions, higher-PWE participants thought that targets were more agentic (F(1, 78) = 4.84, p < .05) and more moral (F(1, 78) = 7.15, p < .01). For both dependent measures, the effect of indulgence remained significant when PWE was included in the model. Unfortunately, this now-consistent pattern of results for
PWE did not line up with my predictions; there was no interaction between PWE and indulgence.
Discussion: Studies 1a-1c
Across three similar studies, people saw those who own luxury cars as lower in positive moral traits and traits related to self-discipline and responsibility. In Study 1c, the relationship between luxury cars and these negative inferences about morality was 57
mediated by participants’ beliefs about targets’ ability to resist temptation. Thus, I found support for my first three hypotheses (H1, H2, and H3).
In line with past research, the luxury car owners were also seen as having greater agency; they were rated as more successful, powerful, and intelligent. This raises the idea of a tradeoff between the positive and negative associations with luxury products. People looking to exert influence or gain social status may benefit from flaunting luxury goods, but they run the risk of being liked and trusted less.
These three studies provided promising support for my hypotheses, but they were not without limitations. The vignettes participants saw were extremely limited and vague. This was intentional; I wanted them to fill in the missing information about the target with their own beliefs about personality traits associated with indulgence.
However, it was somewhat problematic that the profiles lacked information about how the target acquired their car – they could have bought it new from a dealer, received it as a gift, inherited it, or found it used on Craigslist. Because I am most interested in judgments that arise when we know that someone made a decision to indulge when other options were available, in subsequent studies the purchase context is described more clearly.
Study 2: Say “I Do” to Indulgence
Study 2 further illuminates the negative inferences that observers make about people who indulge. Specifically, I wanted to show that judgments of poor self-control would have implications beyond mere judgments of personality. I asked participants to predict important later life outcomes for couples that either indulged in an expensive wedding or stuck to a more restrained budget. As in Study 1c, I thought that 58
participants would see indulgence as a sign of low self-control. I also predicted that the couple who spent more on their wedding would be judged as more likely to experience negative life events and less likely to experience positive life events, and that these judgments would be at least partly explained by participants’ perceptions of the couple’s self-control.
Study 2 also extends my previous findings by looking at indulgence in a completely different domain. I chose to use wedding budget as the indulgence manipulation for several reasons; first, the high costs of weddings has been made salient in the media recently by several reality television shows focusing on bridal budgets, and second, it provides a more conservative test of the negative impact of indulgence because weddings are one-time special events that should, if anything, say less about one’s general propensity to indulge than one’s choice of car. Also, because much of the expense at a wedding is for the benefit of the guests, not the couple, any effects of the wedding indulgence manipulation should be less attributable to perceived selfishness than those of the car manipulation used in previous studies.
Method
Participants. Participants were 99 United States residents (29 female) recruited through the Mechanical Turk online subject pool. They received $.50 for their participation.
Procedure. I told participants that the purpose of the study was to “test their ability to predict people's life outcomes based on limited information about them,” In this case, the target people were a couple who were recently married. I told participants that I would describe the wedding and then ask them to imagine what 59
might happen to the couple in the future. I also provided them with information about the average cost of a wedding in the United States ($27,000; theknot.com).
Next, participants read a short vignette about a couple. This information was held constant across conditions. The vignette described a couple, Jon and Stephanie, who got married in the past month. They worked as a restaurant manager and dental hygienist, respectively, and had a combined income of about $90,000. The vignette also mentioned that the couple was able to borrow money from their parents to pay for the wedding (see Appendix item 3 for the full text).
After the vignette, participants were randomly assigned to either the
“indulgent” or “non-indulgent” condition and received more details about the wedding. These included the number of guests (held constant at 110) and the various costs for food and drink, the wedding gown, the photographer, and the wedding overall. In each category, the cost was manipulated between conditions, such that the indulgent wedding was more expensive (e.g., total cost of $10,000 vs. $50,000). Next came a quote from the couple designed to emphasize the idea of indulgence in the indulgent condition. In both conditions, the couple said they had an amazing night and were happy to be married. One small part of the quote varied by condition; in the non- indulgent (indulgent) condition, they mentioned that they “just really wanted their guests to have a nice (luxurious) experience.”
As a manipulation check, I asked participants how luxurious Jon and
Stephanie’s wedding was on a 7-point scale, from 1 (very basic) to 7 (very luxurious), and how likely they were to buy luxury goods in general. Participants then rated Jon and Stephanie (as a couple) on the 11 personality traits from studies 1c, their 60
likelihood of returning a wallet and volunteering for charity, and their ability to exercise self-control in the face of temptation. As in Studies 1a-1c, “self-indulgent” was included among the 11 personality traits as an additional manipulation check.
Next, I asked participants to indicate the likelihood that each of fifteen events would happen to Jon and Stephanie in the next ten years, relative to the average
American newlywed couple. The list of events included both positive (e.g., being successful parents, owning a business, buying their first home) and negative events
(e.g., getting a divorce, committing a crime, having a drug problem) (see Appendix item 4 for a list of all the items). Each item asked either how likely it was that the event would happen to both Jon and Stephanie or how likely it was that the event would to happen to either Jon or Stephanie, depending on which framing made sense for the individual item. All items were presented in randomized order, and participants rated them on 5-point scales with endpoints “much less likely than average” and
“much more likely than average.”
Finally, participants indicated their gender and whether they had ever gotten married or helped plan a wedding. If they answered yes, I also asked about how much they spent on the wedding in question, and whether that amount was above or below the average wedding cost of other people they know.
Results
Manipulation checks. The indulgence manipulation was successful.
Participants thought that the more expensive wedding was more luxurious (M = 5.86,
SD = .81) than the less expensive wedding (M = 4.08, SD = 1.03), t(98) = 9.63, p
<.001, and also rated the indulgent couple as more likely to buy luxury products 61
(M(SD) = 5.04(1.25) vs. 3.80(1.07), t(98) = 5.34, p <.001) and more self-indulgent
(M(SD) = 5.10(1.38) vs. 3.46(1.30), t(98) = 6.14, p <.001).
Morality / agency ratings. Following the same procedures as in Study 1c, I created composites to represent morality (α = .74) and agency (α = .74). As in the luxury car studies, participants in the indulgent condition saw the couple as less moral
(M = 4.95, SD = .72) than participants in the non-indulgent condition (M = 5.37, SD =
.51), t(98) = 3.32, p < .01. Ratings of the couple’s agency differed only marginally between conditions, but the difference was in the opposite direction as in previous studies; the indulgent couple was seen as lower in agency (M = 4.87, SD = .86) than the non-indulgent couple (M = 5.17, SD = .65), t(98) = 1.96, p < .06. This could be explained by the fact that, although an expensive wedding conveys high social status, it may have seemed like the indulgent couple was not able to competently exert control while they were budgeting.
Self-control. As predicted, the couple was seen as having lower self-control when they had an expensive wedding (M = 3.68, SD = 1.29) than when they did not
(M = 5.18, SD = 1.02), t(98) = -6.46, p <.001.
Positive and negative life events. In order to analyze the effect of indulgence on participants’ expectations for the couple’s life outcomes, I reverse-coded the positive life events and created a composite of all the life events (15 items, α = .86).
Because the manipulation was about overspending, I also created a separate composite that excluded financial events (9 items, α = .76). Higher scores on both composites 62
indicated worse life events for Jon and Stephanie (see Appendix item 4 for an analysis individual items).
As predicted, people thought the couple would fare worse later in life if they had indulged in an expensive wedding (M = 2.72, SD = .49) than if they had a more reasonably-priced wedding (M = 2.42, SD = .36), t(98) = 3.41, p < .01. This difference remained highly significant when considering only non-financial life outcomes
(M(SD) =2.78(.50) vs. 2.42(.40)), t(98) = 4.07, p < .001, suggesting that people were not simply inferring that the couple would struggle with money. Instead, it seemed as though participants were using indulgence as a cue to some facet of Jon and
Stephanie’s overall character that would impact their life trajectory together.
Self-control as a mediator. I predicted that self-control would mediate the two relationships observed so far: the link between indulgence and morality, and the link between indulgence and negative life outcomes. In line with the first of these predictions, the relationship between indulgence and judgments of the couple’s irresponsibility was partially mediated by perceived self-control. As Figure 1 illustrates, the regression coefficient between indulgence condition and perceived morality decreased significantly when self-control was included in the model as a mediator (Sobel Z = -3.70, p < .001).
Next, I tested whether self-control would mediate participants’ expectations that the indulgent couple would have worse life outcomes. Self-control fully mediated the effect, as illustrated in Figure 2 (Sobel Z = 4.67, p < .001). The mediation was similarly robust when we used the non-financial composite (Sobel Z = 4.42, p < .001). 63
In order to test that self-control was the most explanatory mediator, I also tried morality as a mediator and tested the reverse model (negative life events as a mediator between indulgence and self-control). Although both models provided partial mediation, neither model reduced the effect of indulgence on the dependent measure to non-significance. In fact, in both models, indulgence condition remained a highly significant predictor of life events or self-control, respectively, with the mediator included (both ps < .001). This suggests that perceived self-control, as the only full mediator, best explains the link between indulgence and expected life outcomes.
Gender. Participant gender had no effect on the dependent measures and did not interact with the indulgence manipulation.
Wedding planning experience. 33 participants said they had participated in or helped plan a wedding. Within that group, the average wedding cost was $14,244, and most people felt that their wedding had cost about average (among people they know) or slightly below average. Neither wedding experience nor wedding cost had any effect on our dependent measures or interacted with the indulgence manipulation.
Discussion
Weddings are an example of (hopefully) rare occasions where indulgence should be fairly appropriate. However, the results of Study 2 show that overindulgence, even in a special occasion context, is still frowned upon; holding all else constant, the imaginary couple was rated as less moral and lower in self-control when they spent more than average on their wedding than when they spent less than average (H1 and H2). I also found support for the idea that people generalized Jon and
Stephanie’s indulgence in the wedding context to other contexts; they saw the couple 64
as more likely to buy luxury products in general if they spent more on their wedding.
Most interestingly, not only did participants think that an extravagant wedding signaled irresponsibility and poor self-control, they also predicted that those who indulged would fare worse in later life. When Jon and Stephanie splurged on their wedding, they were seen as more likely to get a divorce, go through a major depression, and be unsuccessful parents, among many other negative outcomes. As expected, the relationship between indulgence and life expectations was fully mediated by perceived self-control (H3). This makes sense, given the important role of self-control in maintaining interpersonal relationships (Tangney et al., 2004) and achieving long-term goals (Kivetz & Zheng, 2006; Moffitt et al., 2011). Although the research literature provides strong evidence that self-control leads to poor outcomes, it is interesting that people also seem to have a lay understanding of the role of self- control in life success.
Although Study 2 went farther than Studies 1a-1c by having participants judge more than simple personality traits, it still did not test the impact of indulgence on real interpersonal behavior. If Jon and Stephanie were a real couple, would people trust them less if they found out the cost of their nuptials? With the hypothesis that indulgence and perceived self-control would affect trust in interpersonal interactions, I conducted Study 3 to test the effect of indulgence on participants’ willingness to trust a partner in an economic trust game where there was real money at stake.
Study 3: Trust Game
In Study 3, I sought to demonstrate the effect of indulgence on perceived self- control and trustworthiness in a more realistic context with real financial 65
consequences. Rather than reading a vignette about a target person, participants in
Study 3 watched a video of a confederate (who they believed was a previous study participant) talking about a purchase they had recently made. I manipulated whether the purchase was indulgent (high-end bed sheets) or non-indulgent (basic bed sheets), and then measured participants’ impressions of the target’s personality. Along with the usual measures of perceived self-control and trustworthiness, I included a new behavioral measure of trust: offers in the canonical trust game from game theory research (Berg, Dickhaut, & McCabe, 1995b). In this game, participants have to choose how much money to send to their partner (in this case, the confederate). If they trust their partner to return at least some of the money they sent, they stand to make a profit – the more they offer, the more they can earn. Thus, the amount of money that study participants sent served as another measure of how much they trusted their partner (Righetti & Finkenauer, 2011).
Method
Participants. 92 undergraduates (55 female) enrolled in an introductory psychology course participated in return for course credit. I dropped two participants because they recognized the confederate and two participants because they were suspicious that the confederate was not really a previous participant, yielding a final sample of 88 participants.
Procedure. When participants arrived for the study, they were greeted by a female experimenter who took them to a lab room with a laptop computer on a table and a video camera set up in the corner. The experimenter explained that the study was about judging personality from limited information, and that the participant would 66
be judging the personality of another study participant. That other participant (the target) had allegedly completed the study the day before, and had recorded a video in which they answered a question. Participants were led to believe that they would in turn record a video for the participant who came after them (hence the importance of the video camera in the lab room).
Next, the experimenter walked the participant through the rules of the trust game that they would later play with the person in the video (she never referred to it as the trust game, to avoid implying that the game was about trust). In this version of the game, participants first played the role of “sender.” They received $10, in one-dollar bills, and could choose to send as much as they liked to their partner (the person in the video). Whatever amount they sent would be tripled when their partner received it.
The partner could then send back as much as they wanted. Because the partner had ostensibly already completed the study, the experimenter told participants that the partner had already indicated how much they would send back for each possible offer he or she might receive. She also told them that they would fill out their responses to all possible offers at the end of the study, because they would be playing the role of
“receiver” for the person who came after them (although this never really happened).
Importantly, participants believed that they had a chance to actually receive their winnings from the game; this raised the stakes of their decision about how much to offer to their partner. I did in fact randomly select one pair of participants to win money, although obviously the confederate was not part of that pair. 67
At this point, the experimenter allowed the participant to ask questions until it seemed like they understood the mechanics of the trust game. She also asked three questions about the rules to check for comprehension.
Once the participant showed satisfactory understanding, they moved on to the video phase of the experiment. The experimenter opened a folder on the laptop that contained a list of folders labeled “Participant 1,” “Participant 2,” and so on, ending at
“Participant 24.” Before the participant arrived, the experimenter had randomly assigned them to one of four conditions, which corresponded to the video folders. The four conditions were a between-subjects 2 x 2 design, in which I manipulated which of two confederates participants saw (male vs. female) and which of two scripts the confederate read in the video (indulgent vs. neutral). So that the experimenter would be blind to condition, and to increase the realism of the cover story, the four conditions were in the folders labeled 21-24. The experimenter opened the appropriate folder, and then left the room while the participant watched the video and filled out an online questionnaire about their impressions of the target. This questionnaire contained 5 randomly selected items from the interpersonal trust inventory (Dunn & Schweitzer,
2005; normally 10 items), 10 randomly selected items from the interpersonal self- control scale (Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004; normally 18 items), and 4 filler questions (see below for a more detailed description of the trust and self-control measures). I also asked whether participants recognized the person in the video, and had them briefly describe what the person talked about, to check for comprehension.
After participants completed the questionnaire, they signaled to the experimenter that they were ready to move on. At this point, the experimenter quickly 68
reminded the participant of the trust game rules, handed them 10 one-dollar bills, and asked them to make an offer to the person in the video. Once the participant had decided on an offer, the experimenter entered it into the online form. She clicked to the next page, where participants could enter the amounts they would send back for each of the possible offers ($0 - $30, since the offer could be $0 to $10 but would be tripled) they might receive from their other (future) partner. After participants filled in all their responses, she asked them to answer a few more questions online just to
“wrap up the first part of the study.” These questions were designed to probe for suspicion. At this point, I also collected information about participants’ gender, age, political orientation, and SES via an online questionnaire. While participants filled out the demographics page on the computer, the experimenter left to ostensibly look up how much the previous participant (the person in the video) had said they would send back. When she returned she revealed that the person in the video was actually an actor, and that the participant would not actually record their own video. She debriefed the participant and they were free to go.
Indulgence manipulation. As described above, the content of the videos served as our manipulation of indulgence. In all videos, the confederate was seated in the same room where the study took place, to enhance the cover story that they were real participants. Each video began with the experimenter (off screen) asking the confederate to describe a purchase they recently made. Across conditions, the confederate mentioned that they had recently bought sheets, because their old sheets were worn-out and “kind of nasty.” In the neutral condition, the confederate described buying basic white sheets for $30. In the indulgent condition, they described buying 69
high-end Egyptian cotton sheets for $200 (see Appendix item 5 for more details). We had two confederates, one male and one female, who each acted out both scenarios.
Interpersonal trust inventory. In this study, I used a new measure of interpersonal trust: Dunn & Schweitzer's (2005) interpersonal trust inventory. This 10- item scale was designed to measure trust in a specific other person by asking about trust in real-world situations. I decided to include it as a richer measure of perceived trustworthiness. Each item on the scale is a statement describing an interpersonal situation that requires trust, and participants respond by indicating the likelihood that the statement is true on a 7-point scale from very unlikely to very likely. In this study, we phrased each item so it referred to the confederate (e.g., If Person X was late to a meeting, I would guess there was a good reason for the delay; I would expect Person
X to pay me back if I loaned him $40). To keep the questionnaires a reasonable length,
I randomly selected 5 of the 10 items for each participant to answer.
Brief measure of interpersonal self-control. Rather than using a single item to measure self-control as I did in previous studies, I measured participants’ perceptions of the confederate’s self control using a random subset from the 18-item version of
Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone's (2004) self-control scale. This scale was originally designed to assess personal self-control, but past studies have successfully used an adapted version to measure perceptions of a target’s self-control (Righetti &
Finkenauer, 2011). Each item on the scale is a statement describing a behavior that indicates high or low self-control, and participants respond by indicating the likelihood that the statement is true on a 7-point scale from very unlikely to very likely.
In our study, each item referred to the confederate’s behavior (e.g., Person X is good 70
at resisting temptation; Person X has a hard time breaking bad habits (R)). As with the trust measure, it was necessary to shorten the self-control scale for time reasons. Thus, each participant answered a randomized subset of 10 questions from the self-control scale.
Results
Confederate gender. There was no main effect of confederate gender on trust game offers, perceived self-control, or perceived trustworthiness, and confederate gender did not interact with our indulgence manipulation. Accordingly, I collapsed across the two confederates for all further analysis.
Confederate SES. Although the video did not provide any explicit information about the target’s income or SES, I measured perceptions of SES among a subgroup of
30 participants on a 5-point scale ranging from “working class” to “upper class.”
Participants generally saw the target as middle class or upper middle class, and perceived SES did not differ significantly between the indulgent condition (M = 3.73,
SD = .62) and the neutral condition (M = 3.53, SD = .99).
Trust game offers. My main prediction was that participants would send less money to their partner in the indulgent condition. This hypothesis was supported; on average, participants sent $5.81 (SD = $2.66) in the indulgent condition and $7.07 in the neutral condition (SD = $2.68), and this difference was significant, t(84) = 2.18, p
< .05.
Perceived trustworthiness. I created a trust composite from the 5 items that each participant filled out (for all 10 items, α = .81). Participants saw the indulgent 71
target as significantly less trustworthy (M = 4.74, SD = .76) than the non-indulgent target (M = 5.12, SD = .67), t(86) = 2.54, p < .05. Supporting my assumption that trust game offers also measure participants’ trust in their partner, the trust composite was significantly (albeit weakly) correlated with trust game offers, r(88) = .23, p < .05.
Perceived self-control. As with the trustworthiness measure, I combined the 10 self-control questions that each participant answered into a perceived self-control composite (for all 18 items, α = .88). As predicted, the confederate who splurged on expensive sheets was seen as having lower self-control (M = 3.94, SD = .71) than the confederate who bought more reasonably-priced sheets (M = 4.60, SD = .66), t(86) =
4.48, p < .001.
Self-control as a mediator. I expected self-control to at least partially mediate the relationship between indulgence and trust (measured in two ways here – trust game offers and perceived trustworthiness). Contrary to these expectations, perceived self- control was not significantly correlated with trust game offers, r(86) = .17, ns.
However, self-control was strongly correlated with self-reported perceived trustworthiness, r(88) = .52, p < .001, and fully mediated the effect of indulgence on perceived trustworthiness, as shown in Figure 3 (Sobel Z = -2.26, p < .05).
Participant demographics. Participant gender, age, SES, and political orientation did not significantly affect any of the dependent measures and did not interact with the indulgence manipulation. 72
Discussion
Consistent with my earlier studies, Study 3 showed that people who indulge are trusted less and are seen as having less self-control, supporting H1 and H2. This study featured a novel indulgence manipulation in which a videotaped confederate described a more or less indulgent purchase they had recently made. I also introduced new self-report measures of perceived self-control and perceived trustworthiness and a behavioral measure of trust (trust game offers). The indulgent confederate was rated as less trustworthy and received lower trust game offers, though only the self-reported trust measure findings were mediated by perceptions of the confederate’s self-control.
This unexpected difference in the relationship between self-control and the two measures of trust suggests that, although the two measures are correlated, they may be measuring different aspects of trust. The items in the interpersonal trust inventory tend to relate to responsibility and dependability (e.g., trusting someone to mail an important letter), whereas behavior in the trust game has more to do with selfishness and generosity. Although I did not have an a priori prediction about these different facets of trust, previous studies (Studies 1a-1c) showed that indulgence affects perceptions of both prosociality and responsibility. One could argue that self-control should relate more strongly to trust in another’s responsibility, because self-control is required to follow through on personal commitments. However, it also makes sense that self-control should relate to prosocial behavior, because it takes self-control to put aside one’s self-interested motives for the good of others (e.g., resisting the urge to keep all the trust game money for yourself). I discuss this issue at greater length in the general discussion. 73
Study 4: Medical Negligence
In this study, I sought to add further support to my hypothesis that indulgence has negative interpersonal consequence because it affects perceived self-control (H3).
I created a hypothetical scenario in which a doctor was accused of providing negligent care that caused a patient’s death. The scenario was the same across conditions, but I manipulated the most salient explanation for the doctor’s negligence. I also included subtle information about the doctor’s possessions to make him seem more or less indulgent; for example, in the indulgent condition, he drove a luxury car and wore a designer suit at the trial. I predicted that the indulgence manipulation should affect perceptions of his guilt only when it was implied that he misdiagnosed the patient because of a lack of self-discipline. Thus, I expected indulgence to selectively interact with perceived low self-control, not to have a negative halo effect such that owning luxury products would make the doctor seem guiltier across conditions.
Methods
Participants. Participants were 240 United States residents (86 female, mean age = 30.8) recruited through the Mechanical Turk online subject pool. They received
$.50 for their participation. Based on a priori criteria, I excluded 4 participants who failed an attention check at the beginning of the study, 9 participants who spent an amount of time that was more than 3 SDs above or below the mean on any given page of the vignette, and 11 participants who failed at least one comprehension check question at the end of the vignette. This left a final sample of 214 participants.
Procedure. Participants logged into the study through Mechanical Turk and were told that they would play the role of a juror in a civil trial (for the full text of the 74
vignette, see Appendix item 6). The introductory webpage briefly explained the difference between a civil trial and a criminal trial, and then asked an attention check question to make sure participants were closely reading the instructions.
The next few pages contained a detailed vignette describing a medical negligence trial. For realism, I based the vignette on a real case but changed the names of the people involved (Black, 2007). The vignette described the case of Geoffrey
Morton, age 30. Mr. Morton saw a doctor at a local hospital E.R. because he was experiencing chest pain. The doctor (James Rudolph) prescribed heartburn medication and sent him home, but in reality Morton had a ruptured aorta. This very serious condition ended up killing him 4 days later. After seeing this description, participants read Dr. Rudolph’s testimony and cross-examination. This section included information about the doctor’s income (held constant at $210K across conditions), a brief description of what the defendant was wearing (designer Italian suit vs. gray suit), and a piece of evidence that happened to include information about his car
(BMW vs. Toyota). The defendant’s clothes and car brand served as the indulgence manipulation.
Next, participants read the testimony of Grace Williamson, another doctor who had worked with Dr. Rudolph for the past five years. The plaintiff’s lawyer asked her if there was anything about Dr. Rudolph that might have caused him to misdiagnose a patient. Her testimony mentioned one of three reasons why he might have made the mistake, depending on which testimony condition participants were randomly assigned to: he tends to rush at the end of the day and might not have been thorough
(poor self-discipline condition), he is not knowledgeable about heart disorders 75
(incompetence condition), or he had a painful migraine that day (migraine condition).
I expected that there might be a main effect of this testimony, such that Dr. Rudolph seemed less guilty in the migraine condition because a physical ailment like a headache is generally thought to be outside of one’s control. I did not have strong predictions about whether there would be a difference in perceived guilt between the incompetence condition and the poor self-discipline condition, or which direction any difference might go. The closing arguments for the defense stressed the rarity of ruptured aortas and the likelihood that another doctor would have made the same mistake. The plaintiff’s closing argument reiterated the Dr. Williamson’s theory about why Dr. Rudolph might have made a mistake.
Because the vignette was fairly long and the details were important to the success of the manipulations, I checked participants’ comprehension with 4 questions about the facts of the case. These questions also served to strengthen the manipulations; one asked what brand of car the doctor drove, and one asked participants to describe the factors that Dr. Williamson thought might have led to the misdiagnosis.
Next, participants rated how responsible Dr. Rudolph was for Mr. Morton’s death (1 to 5 scale from not at all responsible to completely responsible) and whether they thought he should be found guilty or innocent (1 to 7 scale from definitely innocent to definitely guilty). If participants responded at the midpoint or higher on the guiltiness question (N = 128), I also asked how much money should be awarded to the victim’s family. In order to somewhat control variability in participants’ proposed settlements, I provided an example: “In a recent medical negligence case where the 76
victim was similar in age and salary to Mr. Morton and the doctor was
COMPLETELY responsible, the family was awarded $5.3 million.”
Participants then rated Dr. Rudolph on 10 personality traits designed to check the competence manipulation and to measure perceived morality (these items were the same as the set of traits used in previous studies, but I removed “powerful” and
“successful” because I was more interested in competence than agency and I imagined that there might be a ceiling effect on ratings of the doctor’s success). I also included a single-item measure of self-control (as in Studies 1c and 2).
Results
Manipulation checks. As expected, participants saw the doctor as more self- indulgent in the indulgent condition (M = 4.90, SD = 1.28) than in the non-indulgent condition (M = 4.22, SD = 1.46), t(209) = -3.63, p < .001. I also found that Dr.
Rudolph’s perceived self-control varied significantly depending on Dr. Williamson’s testimony about why he might have made a mistake, F(2, 207) = 29.44, p < .001.
Planned contrasts revealed that Dr. Rudolph was seen as having lower self-control in the poor self-discipline condition, t(207) = -7.67, p < .001, while the incompetence and migraine conditions did not differ in perceived self-control.
Unfortunately, the competence manipulation seems like it was less successful.
I combined ratings of Dr. Rudolph’s intelligence and competence into a composite (α
= .75), and ran a one-way ANOVA to assess the effectiveness of the testimony manipulation. I expected Dr. Rudolph to be seen as less competent in the incompetence condition than the other two testimony conditions. The one-way 77
ANOVA was marginally significant overall, F(2, 208) = 2.49, p = .09, and a contrast comparing the incompetence condition to the other two conditions was significant, t(208) = 2.09, p < .05. However, the pattern was in the opposite direction of my predictions – participants actually saw Dr. Rudolph as more competent when Dr.
Williamson testified that he was not knowledgeable about heart disorders.
Competence ratings did not differ significantly between the migraine and poor self- discipline conditions.
Defendant guilt. Participants’ ratings of the doctor’s guilt, his responsibility for
Mr. Morton’s death, and the settlement that should be awarded to the family were highly correlated (rs > .5), so I standardized these measures and created a composite
(α = .77). For participants who thought the defendant was innocent, this composite was the average of only their judgments of guilt and responsibility (α = .79) because they did not have the opportunity to indicate a settlement amount. A univariate GLM with indulgence and testimony as predictors revealed only a significant main effect of testimony, F(2, 208) = 4.20, p < .05. Indulgence did not significantly affect guilt or interact with testimony. Post hoc comparisons using Fisher’s LSD test showed that participants thought Dr. Rudolph was less guilty in the competence condition than the other two conditions, and the poor self-discipline and migraine conditions did not differ significantly (see Figure 4). This result did not support my predictions; I had expected that participants would see Dr. Rudolph as less guilty in the migraine condition, where there was a seemingly uncontrollable explanation for his mistake.
Instead, they saw him as equally blameworthy when he was working through a 78
migraine and when he had a tendency to rush his diagnoses at the end of his shift.
Furthermore, I expected indulgence to interact with testimony, such that indulgence made Dr. Rudolph’s appear guiltier only in the poor self-discipline condition, but this prediction was not supported.
Self-control. I delved a bit deeper into self-control to see whether the indulgence manipulation had affected perceptions of Dr. Rudolph’s self-control.
Accordingly, I ran a univariate GLM with indulgence and testimony as predictors and perceived self-control as the dependent measure. Consistent with the one-way
ANOVA I ran earlier, there was a main effect of testimony on self-control, such that participants thought Rudolph had worse self-control in the poor self-discipline condition, F(2, 204) = 31.98, p < .001. There was also a main effect of indulgence – participants thought Rudolph had worse self-control when he owned luxury products,
F(1, 204) = 7.19, p < .01. In this regard, the results were in line with my predictions.
However, I did not find the predicted indulgence by testimony interaction on self- control.
Morality. As in previous studies, I created a composite from the traits designed to measure morality (α = .86). There was no main effect of indulgence on this measure, but there was a main effect of testimony (F(2, 205) = 14.85, p < .001), such that participants saw Dr. Rudolph as less moral in the poor self-discipline condition than in the other two conditions, which did not differ significantly from each other. 79
Discussion
Study 4 replicated the effect of indulgence on perceived self-control; participants thought Dr. Rudolph had worse self-control when he possessed luxury products (H2). The doctor was also seen as less moral when he behaved in a manner that suggested he had low self-control. However, it seems as though these differences did not have the important downstream consequences I expected. Specifically, neither indulgence nor lack of self-discipline made participants see the defendant as more likely to be guilty of medical negligence. If anything, guilt was most influenced by judgments of competence, and, surprisingly, participants saw the doctor as more competent when he made the wrong diagnosis because of lack of knowledge. Why might this be the case? One possibility is that people automatically assume that doctors are very competent. If a disorder is so rare that a doctor has not heard of it, it must be very rare indeed. The vignette emphasized the rarity of the disorder equally across conditions, but it’s possible that that information was more salient when the rareness of the disorder (implied by Dr. Rudolph’s lack of familiarity with it) was solely responsible for the doctor’s mistake.
Looking only at the migraine and poor self-discipline conditions, it is striking that Dr. Rudolph was seen as less moral and lower in self-control when he has poor self-discipline, yet his legal blameworthiness did not differ significantly between the two conditions.
Overall, it seems as though the indulgence manipulation may have been too subtle relative to the testimony manipulation in this study. Although the doctor was seen as more self-indulgent and lower in self-control when he owned luxury goods, 80
indulgence had no effect on his perceived blameworthiness. In the future, I might modify the vignette so that the indulgence manipulation is more obvious, while simultaneously rethinking both of the control conditions.
Study 5: A Luxurious Birthday Gift
In Study 5, I explored whether people will apply the same justifications to others’ indulgent purchases that they do to their own. Specifically, I was interested in whether indulgence will still negatively affect perceptions of a target’s morality when it is linked to a rare special occasion (a birthday). People are less likely to feel guilty about an indulgence if it can be justified (Okada, 2005; Xu & Schwarz, 2009), and people tend to overspend on purchases that feel “special” or “exceptional” because they fall outside of one’s everyday mental budget (Sussman & Alter, 2012). Thus, as
Kivetz and Zheng (2006) suggest, it makes sense that people should feel little or no guilt about indulging on special occasions. Also, people enjoy receiving hedonic goods as gifts, even (or perhaps especially) when they would not buy the product themselves; the gift context allows them to enjoy the product without worrying about whether they should have saved their money for something more practical (Thaler,
1985). I predicted that people would similarly take context into account when judging others who indulge. When a person indulges on their birthday or simply receives an extravagant gift, I expected that observers would not make the leap from indulgence to poor self-control. However, when indulgence is unjustified or unexplained, I predicted that it would have negative consequences for the indulger, in line with the results of the previous six studies. 81
In order to test these predictions, I presented participants with a fake newspaper article about a new shopping center. The article contained a quote from a local resident describing a product that came from the shopping center and a picture of them wearing the product. I manipulated indulgence by varying whether the person in the article had bought a luxury-branded product or a non-branded version of the same product. I also manipulated how the target acquired the product; either they bought it for no reason, bought it as a gift for themselves on their birthday, or received it as a birthday gift from their aunt. As in previous studies, participants rated the target on self-control and trustworthiness. I predicted that indulgence would influence self- control and trustworthiness only when it was unjustified; in other words, people would excuse indulgence that had a specific and limited-time explanation.
Methods
Participants. Participants were 289 United States residents (104 female, median age = 27.5) recruited through the Mechanical Turk online subject pool. Each participant received $1.00 as compensation. I excluded 8 participants who reported that the web page containing the main stimuli did not load, yielding a final sample of
281 participants.
Procedure. After participants logged into the survey, I told them that I was interested in studying the impressions people form based on media portrayals of others. Accordingly, I would show them two newspaper articles featuring quotes from people and ask them to form impressions of those people’s personalities. The first article was a warm-up, and was held constant across conditions. It described the opening of a new science wing at a local high school and featured a picture of the 82
school ribbon-cutting ceremony. The target person was Janice Stevens, the school principal, who was quoted talking about how the science classrooms will improve education in her community. In order to make sure that participants spent enough time reading the article, the survey would not advance past the article for 30 seconds.
After reading the article, participants rated Janice on the 11 agency / morality traits (plus a self-indulgence manipulation check) used in previous studies and assessed the likelihood that she would return a wallet and volunteer for charity. They also rated her self-control and trustworthiness using a random subset of 10 questions
(5 from each scale) selected from the interpersonal self-control scale and interpersonal trust inventory we used in Study 4. Four unrelated filler items were interspersed among the self-control and trust questions. I also asked a new series of four questions about Janice’s preference for high-end products. Each question showed two versions of the same type of product, one more luxurious and expensive than the other (e.g.,
Odwalla orange juice for $3.50 vs. Minute Maid orange juice for $1.50). For each pair of products, participants had to choose which of the items Janice would be more likely to buy. I included this measure to get at participants’ beliefs about the target’s overall preference for luxury products, and, by extension, her overall tendency to indulge.
Next, participants moved on to the main portion of the study. Participants were randomly assigned to see one of 30 newspaper articles, the content of which was determined by three randomized manipulations. All the newspaper articles featured a person describing a product that he or she recently acquired at a newly opened oceanfront shopping center. 83
Product type manipulation. To ensure that the effects would generalize across a wide range of indulgent purchases, I randomly assigned participants to see one of five product stimuli: a pair of sunglasses (for two of the stimuli), a scarf, a fleece jacket, or a polo shirt. The target person was seen wearing the product in a large photo next to the article text. Three of the targets were female (sunglasses, scarf, and fleece jacket) and the remaining two were male. The target person was described as “local resident Amanda [Andrew] Smith.” For the remainder of the methods and results, I will refer to the target as Amanda for simplicity.
Indulgence manipulation. I manipulated whether the product was indulgent or not via the photo of Amanda and part of the article text. The indulgent version of the photo showed a designer logo on the product in question, and Amanda also mentioned the brand name in her quote. The non-indulgent version was exactly the same, except that the logo was edited out of the photo and Amanda did not mention the brand of the product (see Appendix item 7 for examples).
Purchase circumstances manipulation. I also manipulated the circumstances surrounding the purchase of the product via Amanda’s quote. Across conditions, she mentioned that the new shops are convenient and said that she had wanted the product that she ended up getting. I varied whether she bought the product for herself (no reason condition), bought it for herself for her birthday (birthday condition), or received it as a birthday gift from her aunt (aunt gift condition). Thus, the study had a
2 (indulgence) x 3 (purchase circumstances) x 5 (product type) between-subjects design. 84
After spending 30 seconds reading the article, participants rated Amanda on the same measures they had used to rate Janice in the warm-up section. Finally, they indicated their gender, age, political orientation, and SES.
Results
Manipulation check. To test the effectiveness of the three manipulations, I began by looking at the effect of indulgence, purchase circumstances, and stimuli type on ratings of the target’s self-indulgence. As predicted, I found a main effect of indulgence on perceived self-indulgence, F(1, 271) = 11.85, p < .01, such that the people who described buying luxury products were seen as more self-indulgent. I also found a significant main effect of purchase circumstances, F(2, 271) = 4.32, p < .05.
Contrary to expectations, Fisher’s LSD tests showed that this main effect was driven by the fact that people saw the targets who bought themselves a birthday gift as more self-indulgent than the targets who either received a gift or bought themselves something for no reason. Targets in the no reason and aunt gift conditions did not differ significantly in perceived self-control. Finally, there was a marginal main effect of product type on self-indulgence, F(4, 271) = 2.08, p = .08.1
1 I tested only for main effects of stimuli, rather than using a full-factorial model, because I did not have a priori predictions about interactions between the manipulations and the five types of stimuli. Initial full-factorial analyses revealed several 3-way interactions with stimuli, so I opted instead to include stimuli as a “blocking” factor to ease interpretation of the results while still controlling for differences between the stimuli. Also, although the multiple stimuli seemed a marked improvement on the common practice of using only one stimulus, five was still too few to productively use stimulus as a random factor. When stimulus is left out of the model, the effects of the other two manipulations remain significant and the pattern of results remains the same.
85
Self-control and trust. I averaged across the items that each participant completed to form composites for the self-control (α = .91) and trust (α = .90) scales.
I had predicted an indulgence by purchase circumstances interaction, such that luxury products would be associated with low self-control and trustworthiness only when the product was purchased for no reason. Contrary to these predictions, I found no significant main effects or interactions with purchase circumstances. There was only a main effect of indulgence, such that those who bought or received luxury products were seen as lower in self-control, F(1, 271) = 5.54, p < .05, and less trustworthy, F(1,
271) = 8.28, p < .01, than those who had non-luxury versions of the same products.
Also, product type had a significant main effect on trustworthiness, F(4, 271) = 3.78, p
< .01, but no effect on perceived self-control. Thus, these results replicate my previous findings regarding indulgence, but suggest that people’s judgments are not influenced by how targets acquire indulgent products.
I ran a series of regressions to test whether perceived self-control mediated the effect of indulgence on trust (see Figure 5). Including self-control as a mediator significantly reduced the direct effect of indulgence on trustworthiness, as measured by a Sobel test (Z = -2.63, p < .01), although indulgence remained a significant predictor in the mediated model.
Agency and morality. As in previous studies, I created two composites from the 11 personality traits and 2 hypothetical scenario ratings, which were designed to capture morality (α = .86) and agency (α = .79). There were significant main effects of product type on all three composites; because I did not have predictions about 86
differences between the stimuli, I will not go into more depth about these differences.
The two main manipulations (indulgence and purchase circumstances) did not significantly affect perceptions of the targets’ morality or agency.
Product choice. I predicted that people would think that others who buy luxury products have a general tendency to indulge, and I thought this effect would be especially strong when there was no good reason for the indulgence – in other words, when there was no salient situational explanation for the indulgence. As expected, participants thought that targets who owned luxury products would be more likely to choose expensive products on other occasions, F(1, 271) = 10.08, p < .01. There was also a main effect of stimuli on predictions about product choice, and this time it was fairly simple to interpret. Fisher’s LSD tests showed that, for some reason, participants thought that the polo shirt owning target was significantly less likely to buy high-end products than the other four targets. However, there was no effect of purchase circumstances on product choice, suggesting that people are not less likely to infer a general taste for luxury from one indulgence if it can be explained by situational factors.
Demographic variables. Participant gender and SES did not have any significant effects on the dependent measures of interest, nor did they interact with the manipulations. Participant age had a significant main effect on ratings of the target’s self-control (F(1, 247) = 4.33, p < .05) and trustworthiness (F(1, 247) = 5.28, p < .05); it appears that older participants generally rated the targets higher on these two measures. There was a similar but independent main effect of political orientation, such that those who identified as more conservative rated the targets as better at self- 87
control across conditions, F(1, 247) = 7.12, p < .01. Neither of these demographic variables interacted with my manipulations.
Discussion
Study 5 replicated my previous findings and added further support to H1 and
H2 by showing that those who indulge are seen as less trustworthy and lower in self- control. As in previous studies, self-control significantly mediated the link between indulgence and trust, supporting H3. I had hoped to find support for H4 by showing that a special occasion context would moderate the effect of indulgence on observers’ personality inferences, but I did not. Even when participants knew very little about the target other than the circumstances surrounding their acquisition of a certain product, they did not appear to take these circumstances into account.
I imagine two possible explanations for the null effect of purchase circumstances. First, it could be explained by people’s general tendency to underweight situational factors when they make attributions for others’ behavior.
However, it seems unlikely that people would have completely ignored the situational factors described in the vignette, simply because those factors were essentially the only information they could have used to form an attribution. Another possibility is that simply desiring a luxury product is seen as a red flag about indulgence. I purposefully held targets’ desire for the product constant across conditions; even when they received it as a gift, they mentioned that they had wanted it. Although it does not exactly make logical sense that simply wanting a high end product conveys poor self- control (if anything, wanting a product but not buying it should convey strong self- control), it is certainly possible that people generalize from this desire to a broad 88
tendency to indulge. Future research should manipulate information about whether the target actually wanted the product – perhaps by manipulating whether it was received as a requested or unrequested gift – and see whether desire might moderate observers’ tendency to draw broad personality inferences about the target.
Study 6: Burger Or Salad?
In a final study, I explored a factor that I thought would intensify the relationship between indulgence and low perceived self-control: explicitly setting a goal not to indulge. As in previous studies, I expected that targets who chose an indulgent option would be seen as lower in self-control than targets who chose a non- indulgent option. However, I predicted that targets who felt torn between the two options but ultimately gave in to temptation, in violation of a stated goal, would be rated even lower in self-control, and would also be rated lower in trustworthiness as a result. I tested these predictions using a novel type of indulgence: food choice.
Participants read in a vignette about a person ordering at a restaurant. This person (the target) ultimately chose either a bacon cheeseburger (indulgent choice) or a garden salad (non-indulgent choice). I also manipulated whether the target visibly struggled with the decision, yielding a 2 (food choice) x 2 (struggle vs. no struggle) design. I predicted that the effects of indulgence would be exaggerated in the struggle condition, such that targets who struggled but ended up ordering the cheeseburger would be rated the lowest on self-control and morality. I did not have specific predictions about the effect of struggle on judgments of targets who ordered the salad, but past work suggests two opposite predictions: Pizarro and colleagues found that people who struggle with a moral decision get less credit for making the right choice 89
than those who decide right away (Critcher, Inbar, & Pizarro, 2012), whereas recent work by Berman and Small (2013) showed that for “quasi-moral” behaviors like food choice, people get more credit for resisting temptation than for making the right choice with difficulty. In line with Berman and Small (2013), Dhar and Wertenbroch (2012) found that people get a bigger self-esteem boost from choosing healthy foods when unhealthy foods are also an option, suggesting that resisting temptation has positive connotations in addition to the benefit associated with simply choosing a healthy option. Because I was mostly interested in the consequences of making the indulgent choice, I remained agnostic about which outcome was more likely for targets who chose the non-indulgent food in this study.
Method
Participants. Participants were 153 United States residents (53 female; median age = 24) recruited through the Mechanical Turk online subject pool. They received
$.50 for their participation.
Procedure. I told participants that I was interested in how people form impressions of others; accordingly, I would give them some information about a person and ask them to form an impression of that person’s personality.
Before the vignettes, however, I obtained participants’ gender, age, and location. I asked for their gender up front in order to gender-match participants with the targets they were rating. I chose to gender-match in order to somewhat control for actual and perceived gender differences in eating norms (Steim & Nemeroff, 1995).
Age and location were included as filler items. 90
Next, participants read a short vignette about a person ordering at a restaurant
(see Appendix item 8, for the full text of the vignette). In the vignette, I asked participants to imagine that they were out to lunch with a friend. They overheard someone ordering at a table nearby, and it turned out to be Chris (or Ashley, for female participants), an acquaintance who lives down the street (for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to the target as Chris throughout this study). The text of Chris’s order contained my two main manipulations. For half of participants (those in the struggle condition), Chris began his order by debating between the garden salad and the bacon cheeseburger. Specifically, he mentioned that the burger looked really tasty but he was trying to eat healthy. This struggle was designed to communicate that Chris had good intentions (to be healthy) but he was tempted by the indulgent burger. After an indecisive pause, Chris ordered either the bacon cheeseburger (indulgent condition) or the garden salad (non-indulgent condition). For the other half of participants (those in the no struggle condition), Chris simply ordered one of the two foods and did not mention any misgivings about his choice.
On the next page, participants were reminded of Chris’s order and asked to take 20 seconds to imagine his personality. After 20 seconds had passed, they were free to move on to the dependent measures.
Next, to confirm that the indulgence and struggle manipulations were successful, I asked half of participants how healthy Chris’s order was (1 to 7 scale from very unhealthy to very healthy) and how much he struggled while making his choice (1 to 4 scale from not at all to a lot). 91
Participants then rated Chris on the 11 personality traits and two hypothetical scenarios, which would later be collapsed into morality and agency composites, and a self-indulgence manipulation check. They also rated Chris on the full 10-item interpersonal trust inventory (Dunn & Schweitzer, 2005) and the 18-item interpersonal self-control scale (Tangney et al., 2004).
Results
Manipulation checks. Two manipulation checks confirmed the effectiveness of the indulgence manipulation. Chris was seen as more self-indulgent in the indulgent condition (M = 5.08, SD = 1.49) than in the non-indulgent condition (M = 2.88, SD =
1.40), t(151) = 9.37, p < .001. The bacon cheeseburger was also rated as significantly less healthy (M = 2.23, SD = 1.13) than the garden salad (M = 6.27, SD = .84), t(74) =
-17.20, p < .001. The struggle manipulation was also successful; participants thought that Chris struggled more in the struggle condition (M = 2.35, SD = .63) than the no- struggle condition (M = 1.08, SD = .27), t(74) = 11.52, p < .001. Participants who did and did not get the manipulation check questions did not differ significantly on the main dependent measures, so I collapsed across these groups in subsequent analyses.
Morality and agency. As in previous studies, I combined the personality trait measures and hypothetical scenario ratings into measures of perceived morality (α =
.82) and agency (α = .74).
For each composite, I performed a univariate GLM testing the effects of the
2 (indulgence) x 2 (struggle) manipulation. There was a significant main effect of indulgence on morality, such that Chris was seen as less moral in the burger condition, 92
F(1, 149) = 17.80, p < .001. There was also a significant interaction between the indulgence and struggle manipulations, F(1, 149) = 6.03, p < .05. Follow-up contrasts using Fisher’s LSD test revealed that morality was significantly affected by indulgence only in the struggle condition, F(1, 149) = 22.14, p < .001. Also, the simple effect of struggle was significant only within the indulgent condition, F(1, 149) =
5.37, p < .05 (see Figure 6).
For agency, there was only a main effect of indulgence, such that people saw
Chris as more agentic when he ordered the garden salad than when he ordered the cheeseburger, F(1, 149) = 26.17, p < .001. This pattern for agency is the opposite of what I found in Studies 1a – 1c, a finding I will return to in the general discussion.
Participants saw Chris as more irresponsible when he chose the burger and when he struggled (i.e., both manipulations produced significant main effects), and there was also a significant interaction between indulgence and struggle (see Figure 7).
Follow-up contrasts revealed that the main effect of struggle and the interaction were driven by the effect of struggle on ratings of the indulgent target. In other words, even when Chris did not struggle with his decision, he was seen as more irresponsible when he chose the burger than when he chose the salad, F(1, 149) = 12.28, p < .01. Within the burger condition, violating a goal made Chris seem even worse; he was rated as more irresponsible if he struggled than if he chose without hesitation, F(1, 149) =
10.16, p < .01. However, struggle had no effect on his perceived irresponsibility if he chose the salad, F(1, 149) = .07, ns. 93
Self-control. I averaged the 18 self-control items to form a composite (α = .95).
Participants’ judgments of Chris’s self-control followed a similar pattern as their judgments of his irresponsibility; this is not terribly surprising, given that the two were highly correlated (r(153) = -.66, p < .001). There were significant main effects of both manipulations and a significant interaction (see Figure 8). As with irresponsibility, although the simple effects of indulgence were significant in both the struggle and no- struggle conditions, struggle significantly affected perceived self-control only when
Chris chose the burger, F(1, 149) = 13.95, p < .001. Participants saw salad-eating
Chris as equally good at self-control when he decided right away and when he felt more conflicted, F(1, 149) = .64, ns.
Trustworthiness. I combined the 10 interpersonal trust items to form a composite (α = .89). Participants’ ratings of trustworthiness followed a similar pattern their prosociality ratings: there was a significant interaction between indulgence and struggle, F(1, 149) = 4.39, p < .05, but neither manipulation had a significant main effect (see Figure 9). Decomposing the simple effects, I found that the burger/salad manipulation had a significant effect only in the struggle condition, F(1, 149) = 6.81, p
= .01. Also, Chris was seen as equally trustworthy if he chose the salad, regardless of whether he had a hard time with the decision or not; however, if he chose the burger, he was seen as significantly less trustworthy if he did so after struggling with his resolution to stick to his health goal, F(1, 149) = 4.04, p < .05. 94
Self-control as a mediator. I ran a series of regressions to test whether the trust interaction might be driven by perceptions of Chris’s self-control. As predicted, self- control was a significant mediator (Sobel Z = -2.02, p < .05; see Figure 10).
Demographics. Participant gender and age did not affect our main dependent measures, and will not be discussed further.
Discussion
Study 6 provided yet another replication of a few key effects documented in my previous studies: even when the target did not seem conflicted about his or her choice, participants saw indulging in a juicy bacon cheeseburger as a marker of irresponsibility and low self-control, relative to choosing a healthier garden salad.
When the target was torn between the hedonic appeal of the cheeseburger and the goal-consistent healthiness of the salad, the negative effects of choosing the indulgent food were exaggerated: those who indulged in violation of a goal were seen as less trustworthy and lower still in self-control, and the difference in trust was explained by this drop in perceived self-control. It makes sense that participants did not trust someone who clearly lacked the self-discipline to follow through on a goal; this failure suggests that, regardless of good intentions, the target person might not be able to achieve other goals that require self-regulation. Chances are good that such a person would make an unreliable friend, coworker, or babysitter.
In short, participants did not give the target any credit for considering the healthier option if he or she ended up indulging. This seems to contradict Critcher et al.'s (2012) finding that people make stronger inferences about a target’s moral character when he makes a moral decision quickly than when he appears to weigh 95
both sides of the issue. However, it is consistent with research showing that virtue in domains that pit immediate payoffs against long-term goals is determined by one’s willpower (Berman & Small, 2013; Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2012). In the no-struggle condition, it was less obvious that choosing the indulgent food meant giving in to temptation, so it makes sense that indulgers were judged more favorably there.
One shortcoming of this study was that the vignette might have led participants to draw inferences about the target’s chronic levels of indulgence. Although the vignette described only one instance of indulgence and I took great care to avoid language about chronic or past food choices (e.g., saying “I’m trying to eat healthy” rather than “I’m trying to eat healthier”), it’s possible that participants thought that someone who has resolved to eat healthy is struggling with their weight or trying to correct bad eating habits. This potential confound could be ruled out in future research by providing a more detailed background of the target person (e.g., her meals from the week before, a picture, etc.) that indicates a fairly healthy lifestyle. Steim and
Nemeroff’s (1995) target people were of average weight and height and were described as “active and fit people who regularly run and play tennis” (p. 484), but people still judged them more negatively when they regularly ate unhealthy foods.
This finding suggests that otherwise healthy people can still suffer negative interpersonal consequences when they choose decadent snacks, a pattern that I expect would hold even when the indulgence is a one-time event.
General Discussion
Across eight studies, I have consistently shown that indulgence can have negative interpersonal consequences. In all of the studies that included a measure of 96
the target’s perceived self-control, those who indulged were seen as having significantly worse self-control than those who did not indulge. Indulgence also influenced judgments of targets’ morality; those who indulged were seen as less moral or less trustworthy in nearly every study. Studies 1c, 2, 3, 5, and 6 also supported the proposed mediational role of perceived self-control; participants trusted those who indulged less because they saw them as having worse self-control (see Table 4 for a summary of all study results).
Although one should always be cautious when interpreting null results, I found some evidence that people are insensitive to the situational context surrounding a purchase when they evaluate others. In Study 5, people saw those who bought themselves a luxury product on their birthday or received it as a gift as equally low in self-control as those who bought the same product for no particular reason. This finding was not in line with my predictions, but it lends support to H1 and H2; across three quite different purchase circumstances, indulgence led to lower perceived self- control and trustworthiness.
I also found that the indulgent are further penalized if they state an intention to resist indulgence but end up giving in to temptation. Thus, it seems that people do not get credit for having good intentions if they are unable to follow through; considering the more virtuous path actually has negative repercussions for an indulger’s perceived self-control and morality. On the flip side, struggling with temptation has a beneficial effect on perceived self-control if the target person ends up choosing the more virtuous option. These findings are in line with research demonstrating the self-esteem benefits of choosing a healthy snack out of a set that contains unhealthy options, relative to a 97
set that is exclusively healthy (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2012). My work shows that temptation has similar effects in interpersonal judgments.
My conclusions are strengthened by the fact that I used many different indulgence manipulations. Owning an expensive car, spending more than average on a wedding, buying expensive products, and eating unhealthy food all had similar effects on targets’ perceived self-control and morality. However, these different types of indulgence were not identical. Luxury products that convey status, such as luxury cars, typically made their owners appear more powerful and agentic, while unhealthy foods actually had the opposite effect. This difference may be partly due to the ease of indulgence. Nearly anyone can afford to indulge in unhealthy foods, but only those with sufficient resources are able to purchase luxury products.
Self-control and trust
In order to trust another person, one must be sure of two things: their benevolent intent and their ability to follow through with that intent (Righetti &
Finkenauer, 2011). For example, a psychologist who is deeply committed to research integrity but lacks the self-control ability to resist falsifying data could be seen as just as untrustworthy as one who sees nothing wrong with fudging his p-values. A person’s self-control tells us little about her intentions, but it makes sense as an indicator of her ability to follow through on whatever goals she has.
In my studies, indulgence was consistently linked with low perceived self- control, suggesting that it mainly casts doubt on a person’s ability to follow through with her goals more broadly. However, there is also evidence that observers infer immorality from indulgence, perhaps because they associate it with selfishness or 98
greed. In nearly every study, participants rated indulgent targets as lower on my morality composite. Also, in Study 3, people offered less money to the indulgent target, which could mean that they believed she would keep more money for herself.
Also the effect of indulgence on morality ratings was often mediated by perceived self-control, the trust game offers were not correlated with self-control at all. As I described earlier, future research will be necessary to understand exactly what beliefs drove participants’ trust game offers, and whether these beliefs have any truth to them.
Future directions: Other potential moderators
The effects I observed were consistent across studies, but thus far I have been unable to find a manipulation that effectively weakens the link between indulgence and perceived self-control. Thus, in this section, I focus on other potential moderators that might be interesting avenues for future research.
In Study 5, I manipulated the salience of a special occasion context to see whether this had any effect on participants’ tendency to infer self-control from indulgence. The results suggest that, although people give themselves a “free pass” if they indulge on special occasions (Kivetz & Zheng, 2006; Sussman & Alter, 2012) or receive luxury products as gifts (Thaler, 1980), these situational factors make little difference in judgments of others. What about the other characteristics of consumption decisions that typically justify indulgence? Although further research is necessary to test whether each type of justification moderates interpersonal judgments of self- control, the existing literature suggests that some justifications may have more of an influence than others. 99
Entitlement. Consumers feel like they can earn the right to indulge through hard work; will observers feel the same? Although no research to date has looked at the effect of effort on observers’ judgments of indulgence, people do perceive a product as more desirable when they know a target person worked hard to acquire it
(Van de Ven, Zeelenberg, & Pieters, 2011). Van de Ven and colleagues (2011) looked at the effect of deservingness on an observer’s envy for a given product. When a target person was deserving of a desirable product (e.g., she had worked hard to save up for an iPhone), participants felt “benign envy” toward the target and were willing to pay more to acquire the same product. However, when the target was not as deserving
(e.g., she was given the iPhone by a rich parent, not for any special occasion), participants rated the product as less valuable and were actually willing to pay more for alternative products in the same category (e.g., a BlackBerry). Importantly, Van de
Ven et al. did not find any differences in ratings of the target person between the two conditions; participants rated her as equally likable regardless of whether or not she deserved the luxury product. These results suggest that deservingness information may influence how observers feel about the product that another person bought, but not how they feel about the person herself. Van de Ven et al. did not manipulate whether the envied product was a luxury or not, and I did not measure participants’ desire for the indulgent products in my studies, so it is not possible to directly compare our findings, but my work certainly suggests that products can affect one’s attitudes towards a person. I would predict that the negative impact of buying a luxury product would be attenuated if observers knew that the target had exercised self-control in 100
order to obtain it (e.g., the target saved money for a long time or waited to buy the item as a self-reward for a major accomplishment).
Windfall gains. If you heard that your friend won $100,000 in the state lottery and spent most of it on a new Porsche, would you think he was being less irresponsible than if he paid for it with his regular income? Although we know that consumers themselves feel less guilty spending windfall income on a self-indulgent purchase, the existing literature does not offer a clear suggestion about whether observers of the same purchase would react differently depending on income source.
Two well-established principles of attribution theory apply here. People are biased toward making dispositional attributions for other people’s actions and situational attributions for their own actions, a phenomenon known as the actor- observer bias (Jones & Nisbett, 1971). They also generally tend to overestimate the influence of stable, internal factors on others’ behavior and underestimate the power of the situation (Ross & Nisbett, 1991). Accordingly, it seems likely that observers underweight the influence of context when they attempt to explain other people’s consumption choices. Even if they are aware of a recent windfall gain, they may still make (negative) dispositional attributions about why the target person decided to spend that money on an indulgent item. Thus, I would predict that income source would have no effect on observer’s willingness to justify luxury purchases.
Pre-commitment to indulgence. As I described in the literature review, consumers tend to feel less guilty about indulging in luxury purchases if they are able to pre-commit or pre-pay. The pain of paying fades with the passage of time, allowing people to enjoy their hedonic goods guilt-free. From an observer’s point of view, pre- 101
commitment is not likely to have any influence on how self-indulgent a luxury purchase appears. An observer misses out on both the negative and positive affective aspects of a purchase; they do not feel the pain of paying or the hedonic payoff of consumption. For this reason, it should make little difference to an observer whether the payment and consumption are close together or far apart in time, as long as the salience of the purchase remains constant.
Licensing. Will observers be willing to excuse luxury purchases if the target actor has behaved morally in the past? Whether observers will grant moral license to an indulgent consumer probably depends on two factors: how the observer construes the luxury purchase, and what type of prior moral behavior occurred. Research suggests that observers are willing to “let people off the hook” somewhat for severe moral transgressions when the transgressor has previously engaged in morally positive behavior. However, this forgiveness disappears when the target’s good and bad deeds are in the same domain (Effron & Monin, 2010). For example, a high school principal who leads an anti-drug campaign and then gets caught with cocaine will not be judged more favorably because of his earlier moral act; on the contrary, the combination of his good and bad behaviors appears hypocritical. If his good and bad behaviors were in totally different domains, observers would be more likely to grant him a moral license. In the case of John Edwards, it seems as though hypocrisy undermined any licensing benefits Edwards might have earned through his political efforts; his expensive haircuts directly clashed with his claims about understanding working class
Americans. 102
This same/different domain effect only occurs when the transgression in question is severe – in other words, when there is no ambiguity about whether it is morally wrong. When the behavior only potentially represents a transgression (i.e., when there is a perfectly benign explanation for why someone might behave that way), good behavior in the same domain can actually be beneficial to the actor. In that case, previous good behavior can encourage observers to make more favorable attributions for the ambiguous transgression (Effron & Monin, 2010; Merritt et al.,
2010). Moral behavior in a different domain can also mitigate ambiguous transgressions by balancing them out.
Because indulgent shopping does not directly violate harm or fairness principles, it is probably not seen as a severe transgression by most people (cf. Singer,
1972). Indeed, the fact that luxury shopping can be justified suggests that it is sometimes completely acceptable under the right circumstances. It therefore seems appropriate to categorize luxury shopping as an ambiguous transgression.
Accordingly, I would predict that observers would license others who precede their indulgence with virtuous behavior, regardless of whether that behavior was in the domain of purchase decisions.
Experiential vs. material purchases. Another potential moderator of observers’ condemnation of luxury shopping is whether the product in question is a material good or an experience. Research has shown that experiential purchases (e.g., vacations, concerts, gourmet meals) give consumers more happiness over time than material goods (e.g., clothes, accessories, electronics) (Van Boven & Gilovich, 2003). One explanation for this difference in long-term satisfaction is that material goods are more 103
easily compared to unchosen alternatives, which can lead to buyer’s remorse (Carter &
Gilovich, 2010). Third-party observers may also find it easier to compare material goods to alternatives – specifically, simpler, more utilitarian alternatives. A key feature of luxury items is their substitutability for more basic versions of the same product (Berry, 1994); although experiences like vacations can also be downgraded, the relative ease with which people can compare material goods to each other may make less luxurious alternatives more salient when observers are judging material purchases. Therefore, it is possible that the type of purchase may moderate how judgmental observers are; specifically, they may be more forgiving of luxurious experiences than luxurious objects. Recent work lends support to this hypothesis; people who interacted with a confederate liked him less if he described a material purchase than if he described an experiential purchase (Van Boven, Campbell, &
Gilovich, 2010).
Relationship to target consumer. One more variable that probably affects an observer’s reaction to someone else’s indulgent purchases is their relationship to the target consumer. Observers also have little information about a random person’s typical shopping habits, financial situation, or intentions, making it more difficult to make situational attributions for their behavior (Jones & Nisbett, 1971; Kruger &
Gilovich, 2004). For example, a shopper at the mall who sees another woman buying
$600 shoes would not know if the shoes were a self-reward for a big promotion; the observer would most likely attribute the woman’s purchase to extravagant tastes. Even if background information were available, there is little motivation to excuse the bad behavior of a stranger. However, if the person making a luxury purchase is closely 104
linked to the observer (e.g., a close friend or family member), one might expect the observer to cut her some slack. People are motivated to think positively of those close to them, and often change their own attitudes to justify value-inconsistent behavior on the part of important others (Norton, Monin, Cooper, & Hogg, 2003). This was shown to be especially true for East Asians, who tend to see the self as highly interconnected with friends and family (Hoshino-Browne et al., 2005). Thus, I would predict that an observer would work harder to justify an actor’s luxury purchases, and therefore evaluate them less negatively, as the social connection between actor and observer grows stronger.
Protestant work ethic. In my studies, I expected to find that people who more strongly endorsed the PWE would more strongly condemn indulgent purchases.
Although my prediction was not supported by the data, it still stands to reason that there should be individual variability in how much people value self-discipline, frugality, and diligence. People who moralize these values should be especially vigilant for signs that others do not have a strong work ethic, and thus might be more likely to infer global self-discipline problems from a single instance of indulgence.
This pattern might be especially pronounced if the indulgence is related to slacking off at work (e.g., procrastinating, choosing to party rather than study for a test). It is possible that the Mirels and Garrett (1971) PWE scale I used was simply not capturing modern attitudes; it was created over 30 years ago, and perhaps the wording and underlying constructs need to be updated. 105
Implications for marketers
Although my research did not investigate whether people are aware that others judge them negatively when they indulge, the research on justification shows that something is inhibiting people’s consumer choices. Part of this inhibition comes from concern about the real costs associated with indulgence; buying a BMW when you budgeted for a Toyota could present serious financial problems down the line. It’s possible that people also take others’ likely reactions to their purchases into account and anticipated reproach can be a source of consumer guilt. For example, a woman might be uncomfortable buying a handbag with a recognizable luxury logo because she is afraid that others will judge her for spending so much on a purse. If, as I predicted earlier, observers do not judge people for indulging when they appear to have earned the indulgence, this presents an opportunity for marketers.
Advertisements that emphasize using luxury products as self-rewards might serve to simultaneous make consumers feel entitled to indulge and alleviate fears about others’ disapproval. Similarly, marketers might want to emphasize the fact that some indulgent products, such as trashy TV shows or late night snacks, are usually consumed privately - “go ahead, no one will know.” For example, a chocolate manufacturer might promote the idea that eating their product provides consumers with a “private moment of indulgence,” a message that subtly alleviates concerns about others’ opinions. Finally, people working to promote non-luxury products could take advantage of the fact that these products do not appear to have negative connotations; they could emphasize that a consumer’s friends and neighbors will 106
appreciate how wise it was to resist the temptation to overspend on high-end versions of the same product.
Conclusions
The present research adds to a long tradition of research showing just how quickly people pick up on interpersonal cues and use them to form judgments about stable personality traits. When we meet others, we constantly update our impressions of them based on observations, often at an implicit level. My studies sought to isolate indulgent consumer choices as one cue to personality. Obviously, when we really interact with others, we are processing a wide range of cues simultaneously. Yet learning that someone owns a luxury product or enjoys decadent foods could still have an influence, especially if it truly influences perceptions of self-control, as my research suggests. Self-control plays a critical role in moral behavior, and it makes sense that we might be vigilant for cues that suggest that others are not able to successfully resist temptations that might conflict with higher-level goals.
Although my dissertation focuses on one domain of behavior – namely, purchase decisions – its implications are broad. The studies I have presented suggest that people should be careful about what they wear, drive, and carry. This may be especially true when one is trying to earn someone’s trust, as in a negotiation; when one is trying to prove one’s responsibility, as in a job interview; or when one is trying to generally establish one’s good moral character, as in a courtroom or a political campaign. All in all, my research suggests that when trying to make a good first impression, it may be safer to leave the Rolex at home. 107
Tables
Table 1: Big Five and other trait ratings by indulgence condition, Study 1a.
Item Luxury mean (SD) Neutral mean (SD) t (df = 71) Extraversion 4.75 (.79) 4.41 (.91) 2.66** Agreeableness 3.67 (.79) 4.36 (.78) -5.41*** Conscientiousness 4.12 (.85) 4.63 (.87) -4.37*** Neuroticism 3.95 (.82) 3.64 (.80) 2.75** Openness to experience 4.39 (.95) 4.19 (.95) 1.52
Morality (8 items) 2.90 (.57) 3.18 (.55) -4.74*** Agency (3 items) 3.16 (.82) 2.80 (.75) 5.00***
Trust to give presentation 4.16 (1.36) 4.78 (1.15) -4.73*** Not doing share of group 4.21 (1.29) 3.94 (1.38) 1.41 work
* = p < .05, ** = p < .01,*** = p < .001 108
Table 2: Big Five and other trait ratings by indulgence condition, Study 1b.
Item Luxury mean (SD) Neutral mean (SD) t (df = 92) Extraversion 4.97 (1.04) 3.81 (1.07) -5.33*** Agreeableness 3.94 (.93) 4.80 (.92) 4.50*** Conscientiousness 5.05 (.92) 5.15 (1.07) .47 Neuroticism 3.30 (.96) 3.55 (1.02) -1.25 Openness to experience 4.13 (1.11) 3.54 (1.15) -2.51*
Morality (9 items) 4.51 (.76) 5.14 (.80) 3.86*** Agency (3 items) 5.48 (.78) 4.66 (1.00) -4.38***
Not doing share of group 4.34 (1.37) 4.57 (1.79) .71 work
* = p < .05, ** = p < .01,*** = p < .001 109
Table 3: Big Five and other trait ratings by indulgence condition, Study 1c.
Item Luxury mean (SD) Neutral mean (SD) t (df = 79) Extraversion 5.38 (.92) 3.70 (.78) 8.87*** Agreeableness 3.76 (.91) 4.41 (.85) -3.30** Conscientiousness 5.21 (.99) 5.00 (.83) 1.03 Neuroticism 3.83 (.94) 3.43 (.88) 1.97* Openness to experience 4.43 (1.04) 3.52 (1.07) 3.85***
Morality (9 items) 4.18 (.84) 4.65 (.74) -2.69** Agency (4 items) 5.42 (.92) 4.81 (.97) 2.91**
Self-control 4.14 (1.03) 5.09 (1.10) -3.91***
* = p < .05, ** = p < .01,*** = p < .001 110
Table 4: Summary of results for all studies.
H3: H4: H5: H1: H2: Trust Effects Effects Indulgence Indulgence mediated by moderated moderated less prosocial low self- perceived by special by goal or trustworthy control self-control occasion failure
Study 1a X ------
Study 1b X ------
Study 1c X X X -- --
Study 2 X X X -- --
Study 3 X X X -- --
Study 4 0 X 0 -- --
Study 5 X X X 0 --
Study 6 X X X -- X
X = pattern found as predicted 0 = pattern not found or not significant -- = N/A (relevant IV / DV not manipulated / measured) 111
Figures
Figure 1: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with condition, self-control, and irresponsibility, Study 2.
Self-control
-.75*** .23***
Condition (Indulgent Morality vs. non-indulgent) -.21** (-.04, ns)
* = p < .05, ** = p < .01, *** = p < .001
Figure 2: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with condition, self-control, and negative life outcomes, Study 2.
Self-control
-.75*** -.20***
Condition (Indulgent Negative life vs. non-indulgent) .18*** (.03, ns) outcomes
* = p < .05, ** = p < .01, *** = p < .001
112
Figure 3: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with condition, self-control, and trustworthiness, Study 3.
Self-control
-.33*** .49***
Condition (Indulgent Perceived vs. non-indulgent) trustworthiness -.19* (-.04, ns)
* = p < .05, ** = p < .01,*** = p < .001
Figure 4: Guilt composite by indulgence and testimony, Study 4.
113
Figure 5: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with condition, self-control, and trustworthiness, Study 5.
Self-control
-.10* .62***
Condition (Indulgent Perceived vs. non-indulgent) trustworthiness -.17** (-.11*)
* = p < .05, ** = p < .01,*** = p < .001
Figure 6: Morality ratings by indulgence and struggle, Study 6.
114
Figure 7: Self-control ratings by indulgence and struggle, Study 6.
115
Figure 8: Trustworthiness ratings by indulgence and struggle, Study 6.
Figure 9: Regression coefficients and statistical significance for mediation model with condition, self-control, and trustworthiness, Study 6.
Self-control
-.10* .62***
Condition (Indulgent Perceived vs. non-indulgent) trustworthiness -.17** (-.11*)
* = p < .05, ** = p < .01,*** = p < .001 116
Appendix: Study Materials
Appendix item 1: Example profile from Study 1a.
117
Appendix item 2: Example profile from Studies 1b and 1c.
118
Appendix item 3: Vignette text from Study 2.
Text for the “indulgent” condition is in parentheses.
Jon and Stephanie got married this month. They had been dating for 4 years, ever since they met through a mutual friend. Jon is 28 years old, and Stephanie is 26. Jon works as the manager of a restaurant and Stephanie is a dental hygienist. Together, their annual salaries add up to about $90,000. Stephanie is still paying off a loan from the school where she got her dental hygienist degree, but the couple was also able to borrow some money from their parents to help pay for the wedding.
The couple chose to get married in a botanical garden in their hometown, and have the reception at a local hotel. Here are some details about their wedding:
Number of guests 110 Cost per person for food and drink $60 ($300) Cost of wedding gown $500 ($5,000) Cost of photographer $800 ($4,000) Total cost $10,000 ($50,000)
And here's a quote from the couple about their wedding:
"We had the most amazing night. We just really wanted our guests to have a nice (luxurious) experience at our wedding, and I think we pulled it off. It feels great to be married."
119
Appendix item 4: Predicted life events measured in Study 2.
For each item, participants rated how likely that event was to occur for the target couple relative to the average American newlywed couple, on a 5-point scale with endpoints “much less likely than average” and “much more likely than average.” Items in italics are those that were excluded from the “non-financial events” composite.
Likelihood of negative life events compared to average
Non-indulgent Item Indulgent mean (SD) t (df = 98) mean (SD) Getting a divorce 2.94 (.84) 2.62 (.64) 2.14* Getting into serious 3.40 (.95) 2.46 (.93) 5.01*** credit card debt Declaring bankruptcy 2.90 (.91) 2.02 (.77) 5.23*** Committing a crime 2.06 (77) 1.84 (.68) 1.52 Going through a major 2.88 (.77) 2.46 (.61) 3.01** depression Becoming homeless 1.94 (.94) 1.74 (.72) 1.20 Having a drug problem 2.26 (.88) 2.02 (.71) 1.50 Cheating on their spouse 2.94 (.87) 2.68 (.65) 1.69+ Having a gambling 2.62 (.97) 2.16 (.79) 2.60* problem
Likelihood of positive life events compared to average
Non-indulgent Item Indulgent mean (SD) t (df = 98) mean (SD) Being successful parents 3.36 (.75) 3.74 (.57) -2.86** Buying their first home 3.64 (.80) 3.72 (.78) -.51 Having a comfortable 2.84 (.96) 3.28 (1.03) -2.21* retirement Going back to school to earn a more advanced 2.92 (.94) 3.46 (.70) -3.24** degree Patenting a product 2.27 (.81) 2.36 (.83) -.58 Owning a business 3.14 (.95) 3.18 (.83) -.23
120
Appendix item 5: Script from confederate videos in Study 3.
Indulgent condition is in parentheses.
Experimenter, off screen: Please describe a purchase you recently made.
Confederate: Well, I bought new sheets recently. My old sheets weren’t that soft anymore and they were looking kind of nasty. So I went to the mall and got myself some new sheets... they were pretty basic white sheets. But you gotta have sheets. I think they cost about $30. (…they were this really smooth Egyptian cotton and they feel sooo nice. I think they cost around $200.) 121
Appendix item 6: Vignette text from Study 4. Indulgent condition is in brackets.
Imagine that you’re on the jury for a medical negligence case. In this kind of case, your job is to decide whether the defendant (a doctor) is guilty of giving medical care that was below the “standard of care.” That means that she or he gave medical advice that was worse than the care another doctor would have given in the same situation.
Because this is a civil case, the two sides are called the plaintiff (the person suing) and the defense (the person being sued). On the next few pages, we’re going to give you a shortened version of the court case, and it’s up to YOU to decide how likely it is that the defendant is guilty.
--NEXT PAGE--
Opening statement from the plaintiff’s lawyer:
In Seattle, Washington, in August 2012, Geoffrey Morton, age 30, visited the emergency room with chest pain and was seen by Dr. James Rudolph. Dr. Rudolph prescribed heartburn medication and sent him home. It turned out that Mr. Morton was suffering from an aortic rupture – a tear in the major artery coming from the heart. He died four days later.
The family of Geoffrey Morton is suing the Seattle Medical Center and Dr. James Rudolph for medical negligence, claiming that the care that he received fell below the standard of care. Mr. Morton's sister Marie filed suit against Dr. Rudolph and the Seattle Medical Center, claiming that her brother died as a direct result of the negligence of Dr. Rudolph, who was the emergency room physician on duty that night. Mr. Morton was a computer systems engineer who supported several members of his family, including a younger brother.
…
First witness for the defense: the defendant, Dr. Rudolph. Dr. Rudolph is a white man in his late 30s of average height, with brown hair. He’s wearing a gray suit [what looks like an expensive Italian suit] and a dark blue tie.
Defense: Dr. Rudolph, how long have you worked at the Seattle Medical Center?
Dr. Rudolph: I’ve been on the staff there for a little over 5 years.
Defense: And how much do you make each year, if I may ask?
122
Dr. Rudolph: I make about $210,000.
Defense: And they pay you that much because of your extensive training and medical knowledge, correct?
Dr. Rudolph: Yes.
Defense: And have you ever been sued for medical negligence or malpractice in the five years you have worked at Seattle Medical Center?
Dr. Rudolph: No, I have not.
…
Cross-examination by the plaintiff’s lawyer:
Plaintiff: Did anything unusual happen on the day that you treated Mr. Morton?
Dr. Rudolph: No, not that I can remember.
Plaintiff: I see in the E.R. logbook that you checked in about 40 minutes late for your shift. Why was that?
Dr. Rudolph: Hmmm… oh yes, I remember. I was stuck in traffic. They were doing construction on the bridge on 15th Ave., and I was coming from that direction because I had to pick up my Toyota [BMW] from the dealership. My car had just had some minor repairs.
Plaintiff: I see. Did you feel like your lateness threw you off in some way during the rest of the day?
Dr. Rudolph: No, I don’t believe it had an impact on me.
…
First witness for the plaintiff: Dr. Grace Williamson, another E.R. doctor who works with Dr. Rudolph. Dr. Williamson is an African-American woman in her mid-40s with short hair, wearing a navy blue blazer and skirt.
Plaintiff: Dr. Williamson, can you please tell us how long you’ve worked with Dr. Rudolph?
Dr. Williamson: I was on the E.R. staff before he came to Seattle Medical Center, so I’ve worked with him for the entire 5 years he’s been here. 123
Plaintiff: Have you ever noticed anything about him that might make him make a mistake while diagnosing a patient, like what happened with Mr. Morton?
Dr. Williamson: While, let me start by saying that Dr. Rudolph is generally a very good doctor. I don’t know if I or any other doctor would have made the same mistake if we were treating Mr. Morton on that day. However…
Competence condition: I know that heart disorders are not Dr. Rudolph’s specialty. It’s possible that he made a mistake because he was not knowledgeable about heart disorder symptoms. Aortic ruptures are rare, and the exam you would have to do to know if a patient has an aortic rupture is more complicated and takes a lot longer than the basic heart exam.
Migraine condition: I noticed that Dr. Rudolph had a bad migraine headache that day but continued to work because we were short-staffed. It’s possible that he made a mistake because he was in pain. Aortic ruptures are rare, and the exam you would have to do to know if a patient has an aortic rupture is more complicated and takes a lot longer than the basic heart exam.
Self-discipline condition: I have noticed that Dr. Rudolph is sometimes tempted to go with the easiest solution when he’s diagnosing patients, especially if it’s near the end of his workday. It’s possible that he made a mistake because he couldn’t resist rushing to finish his shift. Aortic ruptures are rare, and the exam you would have to do to know if a patient has an aortic rupture is more complicated and takes a lot longer than the basic heart exam.
…
Closing arguments for the defense:
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, no one can deny that Mr. Morton’s death was tragic. However, doctors can only work with the information at their disposal, and such misdiagnoses happen every day even in the best medical facilities, among the best-intentioned doctors. What matters today is that Dr. Rudolph performed the appropriate examination and went with the diagnosis that was most likely. Aortic ruptures are extremely rare, and most doctors would have made the same diagnosis in that situation. In short, Dr. Rudolph’s treatment did not fall below the standard of care.
Closing arguments for the plaintiff: 124
Although no amount of financial reward can make up for the loss of a beloved brother, you have the ability to make things easier for the Morton family after their loss. As Dr. Williamson’s testimony showed, because of ${e://Field/reason}, Dr. Rudolph did not make the proper diagnosis. There is no excuse for endangering a patient’s life, and I hope you will agree that Dr. Rudolph should be held responsible for Mr. Morton’s untimely death.
125
Appendix item 7: Stimuli from Study 5.
Indulgent / no reason condition (sunglasses). 126
Indulgent / birthday condition (sunglasses).
127
Non-indulgent / gift condition (sunglasses). 128
Appendix item 8: Restaurant vignette (struggle / indulgence condition) from Study 6.
129
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