Does Timing of Self-Control Strategies Matter? How Focusing on Proactive versus Reactive Strategies Affects Monthly Spending

Abstract

Overspending and succumbing to spending temptations is a pervasive problem. Self-control strategies can help people resist temptations and make goal-consistent decisions. In an online longitudinal study (N = 363), participants set a monthly spending goal and were randomly assigned to use self-control strategies ahead of tempting situations (proactive condition), during tempting situations (reactive condition), or did not receive strategy instructions (control condition). They reported their all-inclusive spending at month-end. The proactive (vs. reactive) condition reported spending less. The proactive condition also spent less than planned, whereas the reactive condition spent more than planned. The control condition did not differ from the other conditions. Consistent with self-control theories, self-control strategies used before encountering spending temptations may be more effective.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Out of 13 tests, only two variables (age and trait self-control) were significantly different between those who did and did not complete the exit survey. Participants who remained at T2 were older and reported higher trait self-control at T1 than those who did not return to do the second survey.

2 We also examined all other variables collected before the condition assignment for differences by condition. Out of 18 tests, the one other variable that differed was marital status, with more single individuals in the control condition than in the other two conditions.

Additional information

Funding

The research was funded by a grant of the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (#435-2012-1211) to the second author.