Self-Sabotaging in Consumer Goal Pursuit

Gamlin, Jessica Erin

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-527d-yt62

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Self-Sabotaging in Consumer Goal Pursuit

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People pursuing important goals are known to prefer means that are highly instrumental (those most likely to facilitate goal pursuit). The self-handicapping literature demonstrated an important caveat to this principle—that people instead prefer impediments (rather than instrumental means) to their most important, identity-central goals when they anticipate goal failure. Such self-handicapping is driven by ego-protection motives—specifically, the need to attribute blame for failure to impediments, rather than to the self. In Chapter 1, six studies demonstrate another overlooked caveat to preferences for the most instrumental means. Specifically, we show evidence of “self-sabotaging”—i.e., people reduce preferences for highly instrumental means, in favor of less instrumental ones, when they anticipate success on identity-central goals. We show that self-sabotaging is distinct from self-handicapping, in that it is driven by ego-enhancement motives—specifically, the need to attribute credit for success to the self, rather than to instrumental means. Chapter 2 further examines self-sabotaging in consumer choices. We show that in identity-central domains, consumers prefer less effective products, because using less effective products allows them to enhance their ego by attributing success to themselves, rather than to the effective products they used. Such preferences arise when consumers experience a high chronic (Study 7) or situational (Studies 8-9) need for internal-credit. Fulfilling the need for such ego-enhancing attributions prior to choice attenuates preferences for less, in favor of more, effective products (Study 10). Thus, we find consumers strategically enhance their ego through the use of less effective products in domains central to identity.

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