title: Burger or yogurt? Indulgent consumption in impression management contexts.
abstract: We conducted three studies to investigate indulgent choice in settings with and without impression management by public-private manipulation with evaluation. Study 1 showed that the participants were less indulgent under public scrutiny due to the employment of impression management. Study 2 focused on the impression management context to test the moderate effect of self-consciousness in two impression managed contexts. Study 3 focused on context without impression management to test the moderate effects of self-awareness on choices. We found that depending on differences in primed personality, individuals tended to make choices other than those they favoured privately when anticipating that others might form impressions of them based on the decisions made. The findings of all three studies support our basic prediction that people are less indulgent under impression management and suggest that people tend to manage their impression by eating healthier (less indulgently) in public.
authors.affiliation: Department of International Business, National Taichung University of Education, Tai-Chung, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Yin-Hui
authors.initials: YH
authors.lastname: Cheng
authors.affiliation: Department of Business Administration, National Chung Cheng University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC.|Department of Leisure and Recreational Studies, Aletheia University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Molly C-J
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Department of Business Administration, National Chung Cheng University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Shih-Chieh
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Chuang
authors.affiliation: Department of Business Administration, National Chung Cheng University, Tainan, Taiwan, ROC.
authors.forename: Ying Rung
authors.initials: YR
authors.lastname: Ju
mesh_terms: D004651:Employment / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010551:Personality; D012647:Self-Assessment; D012919:Social Behavior
keywords: Impression management; Indulgence; Self-awareness; Self-consciousness