Echo Wen Wan

Regulating the Effects of Depletion Through Monitoring

A robust finding is that participants who perform a depleting initial self-regulatory task are less persistent on a contiguous second task than are those who perform a less arduous initial self-regulatory task. We explain this regulatory depletion effect in terms of a monitoring process. According to this view, depleted individuals focus on the resources they have devoted to a second task, neglect to monitor their performance against their standards for such activities, and prematurely suspend their performance. Consistent with this view, we demonstrate that the regulatory depletion effect can be eliminated when individuals are encouraged to monitor their performance against some standard (Studies 1, 2, and 4) or when they have a proclivity to engage in such monitoring (Studies 3 and 4).

Regulating Risk or Risking Regulation? Construal Levels and Depletion Effects in the Processing of Health Messages

The depletion effect occurs when individuals who exert self-control in a previous task (i.e., depleted individuals) exhibit less self-control on a subsequent task relative to individuals who did not previously exert self-control. This article presents two experiments that implicate construal levels to understand the processes underlying depletion effects in the context of consumer health. At low-level construals, individuals rely on resource accessibility cues (e.g., feelings of tiredness) to determine self-control. Hence, they exert less self-control only when they assess themselves as depleted, manifesting the depletion effect. High-level construals reduce the resource focus and enhance a goal focus, which diminishes and even reverses the depletion effect.

Show Me the Honey! Effects of Social Exclusion on Financial Risk-Taking

This research examines the effects of social exclusion on a critical aspect of consumer behavior, financial decision-making. Specifically, four lab experiments and one field survey uncover how feeling isolated or ostracized causes consumers to pursue riskier but potentially more profitable financial opportunities. These daring proclivities do not appear driven by impaired affect or self-esteem. Rather, interpersonal rejection exacerbates financial risk-taking by heightening the instrumentality of money (as a substitute for popularity) to obtain benefits in life. Invariably, the quest for wealth that ensues tends to adopt a riskier but potentially more lucrative road. The article concludes by discussing the implications of its findings for behavioral research as well as for societal and individual welfare.

Carryover Effects of Self-Control on Decision Making: A Construal-Level Perspective

Six experiments examine how exerting self-control systematically influences subsequent decision making. Exerting self-control led individuals to rely on feasibility over desirability attributes, favor secondary over primary attributes, and choose products framed in a proximal rather than distal perspective. Process measures suggest that these effects occur because depletion from self-control heightens one’s focus on resources and prompts a lower construal level that is carried over to subsequent tasks. Stimulating individuals to adopt higher level construals diminishes these effects. These findings offer insight into the psychological process by which self-control influences subsequent decisions.

To Be or Not to Be Unique? The Effect of Social Exclusion on Consumer Choice

This research proposes that after an experience of being excluded, consumers may strategically choose products to differentiate themselves from the majority of others as a result of their appraisal of the exclusion situation. Experiments 1 and 2 show that when excluded individuals perceive that the cause of social exclusion is stable (vs. unstable), they exhibit greater preference for distinctive products than do included individuals. Experiment 3 documents that excluded individuals prefer distinctive products when their self-view is enhanced through self-affirmation. Moreover, these effects are driven by a strengthened perception of uniqueness. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Confidence and Construal Framing: When Confidence Increases versus Decreases Information Processing

A large literature demonstrates that people process information more carefully in states of low compared to high confidence. This article presents an alternative hypothesis that either high or low confidence can increase or decrease information processing on the basis of how information is construed. Five experiments demonstrate two sets of findings supporting this alternative formulation. First, low confidence leads people to focus on concrete construals, whereas high confidence leads people to focus on abstract construals. Second, people in a state of low confidence view messages framed in a concrete manner as more relevant and thus engage in greater processing of messages framed concretely; in contrast, people in a state of high confidence view messages framed in an abstract manner as more relevant and thus engage in greater processing of messages framed abstractly. These results enrich the literature by providing a fundamental shift in understanding how psychological confidence influences information processing.