Downstream consequences of self-licensing in a subsequent self-regulation dilemma

Background: Self-licensing is the process whereby people make excuses to (temporarily) abandon their long term goals. Previous studies in the domain of self-licensing have mainly examined the immediate effects of justification processes on self-regulation failure. The present study aimed to examine what happens subsequently, when a second self-regulation dilemma is encountered, thereby gaining more insight in the consequences of self-licensing in the long run. Methods: A community sample of 52 females was recruited through Mechanical Turk. After assessing demographic and eating concerns, participants read a vignette describing a situation in which they indulged in an unhealthy treat (i.e., chocolate pie). This indulgence was preceded by a license (experimental condition) or not (control condition). Feelings of guilt and perceived justifiableness were assessed. The self-reported likelihood of making a second indulgent choice served as the dependent variable. Findings: As expected, the license manipulation resulted in lower feelings of guilt after the indulgence. Having a license negatively affected participants ability to resist a second opportunity for indulgence. The reflective consideration of the justifiableness of the first indulgence appeared to underlie this effect, but only for participants with high eating concerns. Discussion: Indulging with a license may be detrimental for people’s capacity to deal with subsequent self-regulation dilemmas. For people with high eating concerns, there seems to be a transfer of the justifiableness from the first to the second indulgence. For people with low eating concerns, a different yet undefined mechanism seems to underlie this effect. Potential mechanisms are discussed.