Consumers frequently experience goal conflict, where they have to choose between staying on course to achieve a goal and succumbing to a tempting indulgence that interrupts goal pursuit. This study introduces a novel strategy consumers use to justify the choice of an indulgent (goal-conflicting) option over a righteous (goal-aligned) one. In three experimental studies involving real consumption decisions, the authors show that before choosing a goal-conflicting option over a goal-aligned one, consumers overstate the severity of their life problems before making their choice to feel more deserving of the indulgence. This justification strategy is apparent when the goal-conflicting option is chosen over a goal-aligned option (vs. over another goal-conflicting option—i.e., no goal conflict), and when the severity of life problems is reported before (vs. after) making the final choice. Furthermore, the findings reveal a positive downstream consequence of the proposed justification strategy on choice satisfaction. These findings contribute to the growing research on consumers' tendency to create reasons to justify indulgences, in this case at the expense of deliberately degrading one's current state to feel more deserving of indulgence.

中文翻译：

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“我的生活一团糟，我应该吃一块巧克力蛋糕：”通过夸大生活问题的严重性来为放纵辩护

消费者经常会遇到目标冲突，他们必须在坚持目标实现目标和屈服于中断目标追求的诱人放纵之间做出选择。本研究介绍了消费者用来证明选择放纵（目标冲突）选项而不是正义（目标一致）选项的新策略。在涉及实际消费决策的三项实验研究中，作者表明，在选择与目标相冲突的选项而不是目标一致的选项之前，消费者在做出选择感到更值得放纵之前夸大了他们生活问题的严重性。当目标冲突选项被选择而不是目标一致选项时（相对于另一个目标冲突选项——即没有目标冲突），这种证明策略是显而易见的，以及在做出最终选择之前（与之后）报告生活问题的严重程度时。此外，研究结果揭示了所提出的理由策略对选择满意度的积极下游后果。这些发现有助于越来越多的关于消费者倾向于创造理由来为放纵辩护的研究，在这种情况下，以故意贬低一个人的当前状态以感觉更值得放纵为代价。