The main purpose of this paper is to describe how different assumptions about temptation and self-control affect the optimal borrowing and saving contracts in a simple stochastic income setting. I find that the optimal savings plan when temptation is myopic consists of a mandatory minimum level of savings, while the optimal plan for farsighted temptation can have several fully restrictive manda...

Choice may be determined both by a consideration of one’s welfare (normative preference) and by desires (temptation preference). To provide foundations for such a theory, Gul and Pesendorfer [10, 11] adopt a preference over choice problems as a primitive and hypothesize that temptation creates a preference for commitment. This paper argues that temptation may in fact create the absence of a pre...

We present the Dispositional Self-Control (DSC) Scale, which reflects individuals' tendency to override 2 types of temptations, termed doing wrong and not doing right. We report a series of 5 studies designed to test the reliability and validity of the scale. As hypothesized, high DSC predicts distant future orientation and low DSC predicts deviant behaviors such as aggression, alcohol misuse, ...

This survey discusses decision–theoretic models of agents who seek to constrain and regulate their own future behavior. The common theme is that the decision makers’ future utility is affected by unwanted temptations. The wish to eliminate temptations from future option sets creates a preference for commitment. The surveyed models explore the relationship between temptations and other psycholog...

OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which food temptation influences liking, the hedonics of food, and wanting, the motivation to eat, and whether this effect differed between normal-weight and overweight women. METHODS AND PROCEDURES Ninety-seven normal-weight and overweight women participated in a randomized experiment, which used a two-by-two design with foo...

Five studies examined whether, in self-control dilemmas, individuals develop an implicit disposition to approach goals and avoid temptations, psychologically as well as physically. Using a method developed by A. K. Solarz (1960; see also K. L. Duckworth, J. A. Bargh, M. Garcia, & S. Chaiken, 2002), the authors assessed the time for pulling and pushing a lever in response to goal- and temptation...

We perform a structural estimation of the preference parameters in a buffer-stock consumption model augmented with temptation disutility. We adopt a two-stage Method of Simulated Moments methodology to match our simulated moments with those observed in the US Survey of Consumer Finances. To identify the parameters we use liquid and quasi-liquid (retirement) wealth holdings at different ages as ...