British Journal of Social Psychology (2013) © 2013 The British Psychological Society www.wileyonlinelibrary.com ‘I deserve a treat!’: Justifications for indulgence undermine the translation of intentions into action Cat Taylor*, Thomas L. Webb and Paschal Sheeran University of Sheffield, UK The present research explores how justifications for indulgence influence the translation of ‘good’ intentions into action. Three studies investigated the nature of such justifications and their relation to indulgence. Study 1 identified six ways that people justify indulgence to themselves – that they are deserving or curious, that the indulgence is an exception to the norm or can be compensated for later, or that the tempting food is available or irresistible. Study 2 showed that the use of justifications undermined participants’ strong (but not weak) intentions to halve their consumption of a nominated high-fat food. Study 3 found that priming the use of justifications increased the amount of chocolate that participants consumed in a subsequent, ostensibly unrelated, taste test. Again, justification use had a greater effect on participants with strong intentions to limit indulgence. Taken together, the studies suggest a new approach to understanding intention–behaviour discrepancies. ‘The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and the soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.’ (Oscar Wilde, 2003, p. 61) The need to impose self-control arises when the short- and long-term consequences of actions are in conflict. Behaviours that offer short-term benefits (e.g., the pleasure of consuming chocolate), but long-term harm (e.g., poor health) are known as ‘vices’ (Wertenbroch, 1998). Conversely, behaviours that provide little short-term pleasure (e.g., staying late in the office), but long-term advantage (e.g., progression up the career ladder) are termed ‘virtues’. As the proverb suggests, however, ‘good’ intentions (i.e., intentions to enact virtues and avoid vice) are not always translated into action (‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’). Reviews indicate that rates of enactment of behavioural intentions are only about 50% (e.g., Sheeran, 2002) and a substantial literature has developed on factors that might explain this intention– behaviour ‘gap’ (Sheeran, 2002; Webb & Sheeran, 2006). To date, this research has focused on the properties of behavioural intention (e.g., stability, activation, elaboration; for a review, see Sheeran, Milne, Webb, & Gollwitzer, 2005), or contextual features (e.g., unexpected obstacles; DiBonaventura & Chapman, 2005) that influence intention–behaviour relations. The idea is that, given the right intentions and the right circumstances, people will exert self-control and successfully translate their intentions into action. Very little research focuses on the alternative possibility – that there are instances when even well-intentioned people may knowingly and *Correspondence should be addressed to Cat Taylor, Clinical Genetics, Sheffield Children’s Hospital, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TT, UK (e-mail: cat.taylor@sch.nhs.uk). DOI:10.1111/bjso.12043 1