Eating chocolate – even in abundance – is not synonymous with a lack of self-control. In short, it is not correct to further fuel the feelings of guilt of the more or less compulsive consumers. This is suggested by the latest research by Joachim Vosgerau, a professor in the Bocconi Department of Marketing, who together with other authors has come to the head of the dilemma: no, choosing to eat a chocolate cake instead of a carrot does not equate to a lack of self-control.
In the field of consumer research, self-control is indeed often conceptualized as, and tested through, the ability or inability to refrain from hedonistic consumption – in its simplest form, eating sugary and fatty foods. According to this common conceptualization, dietary decisions involve a trade-off between health and pleasure, where choosing pleasure is associated with a lack of self-control.
But, as Vosgerau and his co-authors argue in an article whose title already says it all (Exerting Self-Control ≠ Sacrificing Pleasure), because the choice is equivalent to a lack of self-control, it must be accompanied by an anticipation of regret and violate a long-term goal of the consumer.
Confronted with the opportunity to eat a piece of cake or a carrot, a person intending to lose weight would experience a lack of self-control if they chose to eat cake and expect to regret doing so. The regret prediction would signal that eating cake violates your long-term goal of losing weight. If the same person ate just a small piece of cake, however, he wouldn't experience a lack of self-control because he wouldn't eat enough to breach the target to lose weight and trigger regret.
“So, it's not the consumption of cake that automatically signals a lack of self-control, but the fact that consumers believe they can regret their choice – argues the expert -. Our research shows that health and pleasure are not necessarily in conflict“. This thought challenges the dichotomous perception of good and bad foods, which is a wrong simplification of food practices. As a result, Vosgerau, Irene Scopelliti of the Cass Business School and Young Eun Huh of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology's School of Business and Technology Management argue that obesity should not, as is often the case, be associated with a lack of self-control, since the two aspects cannot be connected empirically.
"So long as individuals' long-term goals often differ, the same goes for the prerequisites of the lack of self-control – adds Vosgerau -. If a person has no problem with their weight and does not anticipate regretting their food choices, then we cannot say that the person lacks self-control."
Concluding their article, the authors ask whether consumer behavior researchers and psychologists can advise consumers on dietary practices or give advice on what constitutes a healthy lifestyle: “We argue that this task falls within the competence of nutritionists, biologists and medical professionals, who can objectively determine which foods and in what quantities are good or bad,” says Huh.
“Consumer behavior researchers and psychologists are in a better position to help consumers realize they have a self-control problem and to assist them in altering their perceptions of food so that taste and healthiness become more closely associated. By abandoning the idea that eating bad foods equals a failure of self-control, consumers should find it easier to exercise self-control, particularly if they can combine the dietary knowledge of medically trained professionals and the behavioral knowledge of psychologists and consumer behavior researchers,” concludes Scopelliti.
