Enacting rituals to improve self-control

Datos Bibliográficos

ID6202950
AutoresAllen Ding Tian, Peter Jansen (University of Waterloo, autor de correspondencia), Jonathan Schroeder (0000-0002-0538-0730), Juliana Schroeder, Gerald Häubl (0000-0001-9705-0757), Jane L Risen (0000-0003-4879-1705), Michael I Norton, Francesca Gino (0000-0002-9794-482X)
Año2018
Volumen114
Número6
Páginas851-876
Fecha de publicación2018-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
EditorialAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/pspa0000113
OpenAlexW29771567
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas17
Referencias citadas4

Rituals are predefined sequences of actions characterized by rigidity and repetition. We propose that enacting ritualized actions can enhance subjective feelings of self-discipline, such that rituals can be harnessed to improve behavioral self-control. We test this hypothesis in 6 experiments. A field experiment showed that engaging in a pre-eating ritual over a 5-day period helped participants reduce calorie intake (Experiment 1). Pairing a ritual with healthy eating behavior increased the likelihood of choosing healthy food in a subsequent decision (Experiment 2), and enacting a ritual before a food choice (i.e., without being integrated into the consumption process) promoted the choice of healthy food over unhealthy food (Experiments 3a and 3b). The positive effect of rituals on self-control held even when a set of ritualized gestures were not explicitly labeled as a ritual, and in other domains of behavioral self-control (i.e., prosocial decision-making; Experiments 4 and 5). Furthermore, Experiments 3a, 3b, 4, and 5 provided evidence for the psychological process underlying the effectiveness of rituals: heightened feelings of self-discipline. Finally, Experiment 5 showed that the absence of a self-control conflict eliminated the effect of rituals on behavior, demonstrating that rituals affect behavioral self-control specifically because they alter responses to self-control conflicts. We conclude by briefly describing the results of a number of additional experiments examining rituals in other self-control domains. Our body of evidence suggests that rituals can have beneficial consequences for self-control. (PsycINFO Database Record

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