Many decisions in everyday life require self-control. Should one eat the delicious dessert although one tries to lose weight? Should one buy a beautiful piece of clothing although one wants to save money? In such situations, people face a temptation and they can decide to resist or to give in. Which decision makes more satisfied? And are there systematic differences between people?

A recently published article by ISS researcher Erik Hölzl and his colleagues Michail Kokkoris and Carlos Alós-Ferrer studied the satisfaction with decisions to resist a temptation or to give in. The results from 11 studies with over more than 3000 participants showed that individual differences in the dimension of ‘lay rationalism’ play a crucial role. Lay rationalism captures the tendency to rely primarily on reasons rather than on feelings when making a decision. In decisions to resist a temptation, participants high on lay rationalism reported being more satisfied than those low on lay rationalism. However, in decisions to indulge a temptation, participants low on lay rationalism were more satisfied than those high on lay rationalism. This effect was due to perceived authenticity, i.e., the impression to act in line with one’s ‘true self’. The results indicate that self-control and restraint not always lead to higher satisfaction, but that it matters what a person sees as a legitimate basis for decisions.