THESIS
2017
xii, 172 pages : illustrations ; 30 cm
Abstract
Food consumption decisions often represent a self-control conflict since immediate
pleasure from food consumption is not compatible with the long-term benefits of regulating
consumption. Consumers are not very good at resolving such self-control problems, as
evidenced by the rising obesity rate over the past several decades. Even if consumers know
what better decisions are, not all consumers make decisions according to such cognitions,
but, rather, only motivated consumers may do so. This dissertation explores how motivation
can enhance self-control decisions with the help of cognitions across three essays that have
different scopes of investigation. The first essay explores dynamics of self-control operation
within a single consumption episode. Under cognitive load, while unres...[
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Food consumption decisions often represent a self-control conflict since immediate
pleasure from food consumption is not compatible with the long-term benefits of regulating
consumption. Consumers are not very good at resolving such self-control problems, as
evidenced by the rising obesity rate over the past several decades. Even if consumers know
what better decisions are, not all consumers make decisions according to such cognitions,
but, rather, only motivated consumers may do so. This dissertation explores how motivation
can enhance self-control decisions with the help of cognitions across three essays that have
different scopes of investigation. The first essay explores dynamics of self-control operation
within a single consumption episode. Under cognitive load, while unrestrained (vs.
restrained) eaters are less likely to choose a virtue, and once they choose a virtue, they
consume a larger quantity of the chosen virtue and show weaker goal accessibility to self-control,
which reveals an ironic consequence of choosing a virtue. The second essay
examines the dynamics of self-control across consumption episodes to test the effect of
nutrition information provision. I demonstrate that restrained eaters tend to have small mental
budgets for daily calorie consumption, which affect their use of nutrition information.
Specifically, nutrition information provision does not always induce lower calorie choice but
causes restrained eaters to reduce subsequent calorie intake after prior high-calorie intake due
to their tight budget balance. The third essay investigates the effect of low-calorie labeling in
a social setting where consumers have impression management motivation. When women are
motivated to convey a conscientious impression, low-calorie labels increase the choice of
target foods in a social setting due to the consumption stereotypes of eating low-calorie food.
Taken together, this dissertation shows how the interplay of motivation and cognition
influences self-control decisions, offering important implications for future research,
marketing practices, and public policy.
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