Saying “no” to temptation: Want-to motivation improves self-regulation by reducing temptation rather than by increasing self-control.

TLDR

Self‑regulation is conceptualized as the interplay between controlled and impulsive processes, yet most research has focused on the controlled side. The studies examine how motivation affects impulsive processes—automatic preferences for goal‑disruptive stimuli, subjective temptations, and obstacles—versus controlled processes, and discuss the implications. The authors assess implicit affective reactions to temptations, subjective obstacle reports, expended effort, and real‑time desires and self‑control using experience sampling across four studies. Want‑to motivation reduces impulsive attraction to temptations and lowers perceived obstacles, leading to higher goal attainment, whereas have‑to motivation does not affect automatic reactions but increases perceived obstacles and temptations.

Abstract

Self-regulation has been conceptualized as the interplay between controlled and impulsive processes; however, most research has focused on the controlled side (i.e., effortful self-control). The present studies focus on the effects of motivation on impulsive processes, including automatic preferences for goal-disruptive stimuli and subjective reports of temptations and obstacles, contrasting them with effects on controlled processes. This is done by examining people's implicit affective reactions in the face of goal-disruptive "temptations" (Studies 1 and 2), subjective reports of obstacles (Studies 2 and 3) and expended effort (Study 3), as well as experiences of desires and self-control in real-time using experience sampling (Study 4). Across these multiple methods, results show that want-to motivation results in decreased impulsive attraction to goal-disruptive temptations and is related to encountering fewer obstacles in the process of goal pursuit. This, in turn, explains why want-to goals are more likely to be attained. Have-to motivation, on the other hand, was unrelated to people's automatic reactions to temptation cues but related to greater subjective perceptions of obstacles and tempting desires. The discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for self-regulation and motivation.