Impulse purchases are encouraged by retailers and can comprise a significant portion of a retailer’s sales. However, both consumers and researchers generally see impulse purchases as something to be avoided because they tend to be incongruent with consumers’ long-term goals. Using a goal congruence framework, this research finds that taking a broader temporal perspective of a virtuous choice made some time ago (i.e., a distant-past hyperopic choice) is one way for consumers to reduce the regret associated with an impulse purchase. Specifically, recalling a distant-past virtuous choice provides justification for a recent impulse purchase, reducing goal incongruity and thereby reducing associated regret. This effect allows retailers to both encourage impulse purchases and mitigate their potential negative consequences.

零售商鼓励冲动性购买，并且冲动性购买占零售商销售的很大一部分。但是，消费者和研究人员通常都认为冲动性购买是应避免的事情，因为它们往往与消费者的长期目标不一致。使用目标一致性框架，这项研究发现，从前一段时间做出的良性选择（即远距离过去的远视选择）的更广泛的时间观点来看，是消费者减少与冲动购买相关的后悔的一种方式。具体而言，回忆远距离的良性选择可为最近的一次冲动购买提供理由，减少目标不一致，从而减少相关的后悔。这种效应使零售商既可以鼓励冲动购买，又可以减轻其潜在的负面影响。