A new study by Loran Nordgren and Eileen Chou at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, shows that thinking about something you’re trying to avoid, may increase your chances of succumbing to its temptations. They’ve been studying temptation and techniques people might use to help them be strong in avoiding things they know are bad for them, such as fatty foods, drugs or even sex. Now, in their paper published in Psychological Science, they show that thinking about what you’re trying to avoid, might lead you down the path of falling prey to what you’re trying to avoid.
To come to this conclusion, the duo carried out a series of experiments on volunteer students.
In the first experiment, forty nine male volunteers who claimed to be in committed relationships were shown two different kinds of films. The first group was shown a sexually oriented film, while the second was shown something much more bland. Next, members of both groups were shown photographs of “attractive” women and the time they looked at the image was recorded. Next, the same group was retested later, but this time were told that the pictures of the attractive women were of incoming unattached Freshman, which meant they were “available.” The group of men shown the erotic videos stared longer at photographs of the attractive women, then did the group that had watched the boring movie, and even longer at the photos of the supposed incoming Freshman.
In the second experiment, a group of volunteer smokers were asked to smoke right before showing up before the experiment. Another group was asked to not smoke for three hours prior. In the first phase of the experiment all of the volunteers were asked to rate the pleasure they derived from smoking. In the second phase, everything was the same as the first except that they were given the choice of delaying smoking for forty minutes or receiving a small amount of money. Those that had smoked just prior to the study were more likely to take the money. But, more interestingly, they also rated the pleasure they derived from smoking as lower.
The researchers say all of this shows that when people are given time to really think over what they are trying to avoid, such as smoking, or cheating on a spouse, or in other words, the more time they have to consider their options, the less likely they are to avoid doing the thing that is tempting them.