Many people's best intentions come undone in the face of cake or chocolate or Pringles or a cookie. Research suggests that one way of dealing with this is to exaggerate the threat.
According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research Authors Ying Zhang, Szu-Chi Huang and Susan M. Broniarczyk (all University of Texas at Austin), your ability to resist that tempting cookie depends on how a big a threat you perceive it to be. “Four experiments show that when consumers encounter temptations that conflict with their long-term goals, one self-control mechanism is to exaggerate the negativity of the temptation as a way to resist, a process we call counteractive construal,” the researchers write.
If you wnat to resist temptation repeatedly exaggerate the powerof that food to your health and well-being. For example, exaggerate in your mind the amount of calries in it or the amount of transfats or salt or the effect it will have on your hips or your skin. Doing this could just help you resist temptation next time and the next time.
