Harvard Business Review - When Virtue Is a Vice - by Anat Keinan and Ran Kivetz
When Virtue Is a Vice - by Anat Keinan and Ran Kivetz
Though we all have guilty pleasures, our day-to-day decisions are usually governed by a deep-seated sense that we’d be better off in the long run if we favored work over leisure, necessities over luxuries, and saving money over impulsively spending it. But would we be happier? Our research shows that forgoing indulgences today can feed strong regrets later, and that near-term regrets about self-indulgence dramatically fade with time. These responses are so strong that we were able to influence people’s buying behavior simply by asking them to anticipate their long-term regrets. One of our studies—published in the Journal of Consumer Research—explored the regret felt by college students over their conduct on recent winter breaks and by alumni remembering winter breaks of 40 years ago. Regret about not having spent or traveled more during breaks increased with time, whereas regret about not having worked, studied, or saved money during breaks decreased with time. We saw a similar pattern in a study of how businesspeople perceived past choices between work and pleasure. Over time, those who had indulged felt less and less guilty about their choices, whereas those who had been dutiful experienced a growing sense of having missed out on the pleasures of life.
Labels: Consumerism
