Exercising Self-Control Can Make Us Behave Impulsively

In my last post, I discussed several factors that motivate impulse buying. Those included personality, hedonism, and personal connections with products. While those factors can and do motivate impulse buying, the fact remains that sometimes people resist urges to buy on impulse. How? The answer to that is with self-control. Self-control is defined as exerting control over the self by the self to govern automatic urges and behavior. What makes self-control fail though? Why can we exert it sometimes but not others? The answer, somewhat paradoxically, is that self-control fails after we’ve used self-control. If this seems confusing, don’t worry. In this post I’m going to discuss why self-control use leads to self-control failures and what you can do to reduce the likelihood of a self-control failure the next time you’re shopping.

When we exercise self-control we’re consuming mental energy resources. Mental energy is like physical energy: We have a limited amount and it’s temporarily depleted through use. After that energy is depleted we become weaker and are less able to exert self-control while it’s being replenished. When we’re less able to exert self-control, we’re more vulnerable to automatic, impulsive urges. To frame this in a consumer context, when we’re shopping and we see products we like we have to use willpower to resist purchasing them. Every time we do we’re depleting mental energy used for subsequent exertions of willpower, which increases the chance we won’t have enough to resist the temptation to buy something we see later. Have you ever wondered why we see gum, candy, and miscellaneous items at grocery store checkouts? It’s because we’re more likely to buy those products when they’re placed in such a way so as to be noticed at the end of a shopping trip, when we’re more likely to be fatigued. This practice can also be observed at online stores. Consider the example of the online clothier that includes suggested items on the shopping bag page. The same principle applies as before, that being we’re more likely to succumb to temptation at the (presumed) end of our shopping experience, when we’re probably feeling more impulsive.

What does this mean for you the next time you go shopping? On a long shopping trip you’ll probably have to resist the urge to buy numerous products you like but shouldn’t buy. Every time you do, you’re depleting limited mental energy reserves and increasing the likelihood that at some later point in your shopping trip you’ll spend money impulsively. Going on shorter shopping trips by visiting less stores (or websites) and spending less time browsing should reduce the number of products you see that you like and have to resist buying. By exposing yourself to fewer instances in which you must expend willpower, you’ll have more energy to make thoughtful, intelligent spending decisions. In my next post, I’m going to discuss ways of replenishing mental energy more quickly after it’s been depleted. Until then, always remember to try to be a smarter consumer.