Summary of: Gollwitzer, P.M., & Sheeran, P. (2009). Self-regulation of consumer decision making and
behavior: The role of implementation intentions. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19, 593-607.
Self-regulation of consumer decision making and behavior:
The role of implementation intentions
consumers' decisions are strongly affected by the information presented and how willing and
able perceivers are to process that information (e.g. product info emotional or factual)
what type of info has a greater impact on people’s decisions is influence by recipients
cognitive capacity, motivation, mood, age etc.
enactment of consumer behavior depend on features of situational context in which action is
initiated (e.g. presence of distractors), the strength of the person’s commitment to purchase
the item and available resources (e.g. negotiation skills)
→ people can control the influence of such determinats on consumer decision making and decision
realization by adopting a self-regulators strategy: implementation intentions (i.e. if-then plans)
consumers can take an active role in decision making and decision enactment
What are implementation intentions and how do they work?
Nature and effects of implementation intentions
To form an implementation intention, one needs too…
1. identify a future goal-relevant situational cue (e.g. a good opportunity to act or an obstacle
to goal pursuit)
2. identify a related goal-directed response to that cue (e.g. how to respond to the
opportunity or how to overcome the obstacle)
→ “If situation Y arises, then I will initiate behavior Z!”
the if-component of the plan specifies when and where one will pursue a
goal, whereas the then-component of the plan specifies how this will be
done → strong link between situational cue and a goal-directed response
help to close gap between setting goals and actually realizing them (e.g.
79% of patients applying this method took their pills, whereas only 55%
of the control group did)
problems of getting started on one's goals can be solved effectively by
forming implementation intentions, as they help to initiate goal-directed
action even at inconvenient times (e.g., during holidays), when there is
an initial reluctance to get started (e.g. eat low fat diet) and when it is
easy to forget to act (e.g. regular intake of vitamins)
protect ongoing goal striving form interference as external stimuli (e.g.
temptations) or internal stimuli (e.g. being anxious)
Mechanisms of implementation intention effects
implementation intentions facilitate goal attainment on the basis of
psychological processes that relate to the anticipated situation (specified
in the if-part of the plan), the intended behavior (specified in the then-
part of the plan), and the mental link forged between the if-part and the
then-part of the plan
as one has to think of critical future situations they becomes activated
and more accessible → activation helps people to detect their moment for
acting even when their attention is otherwise absorbed
component processes of implementation intentions (enhanced cue
accessibility, strong cue–response links, and automation of responding)
mean that if-then planning enables people to see and seize good
opportunities to move towards their goals
, Health Psychology – Gollwitzer (lecture 2) 2
→ automates goal striving; people intentionally make if-then plans that
delegate control of goal-directed behavior to pre-selected situational cues
with the explicit purpose of reaching their goals (delegation hypothesis)
◦ evidence form brain study: implementation intentions that specified
an ignore–response in the then-component helped control fear in
response to pictures of spiders among participants with spider phobia
→ also implementation intentions indeed lead to strategic automation
of the specified goal-directed response (e.g. ignore–response) when
the critical cue (e.g. spider picture) is encountered as brain activity as
a response to the picture was present before a conscious effortful
action could be initiated
◦ brain activity for people with implementation intention in medial
rostral prefrontal cortex which is associated with a bottom-up control
of action
◦ delegation hypothesis supported by studies: 80% of individuals with
poor self-regulatory abilities (ADHD, Schizophrenia) accomplished task
at the end of the day, whereas none of the people from the control
group did
How can implementation intentions be used to enhance consumer decision making?
people can process the incoming information in a deep or shallow manner thus taking a
systematic or central route versus a heuristic or peripheral route
implementation intentions can be used to promote engagement by inducing experience with
the consumer product
there might be unwanted influences that can militate against optimal attention to, and
elaboration of, the message: mood, ego-depletion, implicit stereotypes and attitudes,
cravings, and emotional reactivity → implementation intention would only work when
suppressing such factors or when controlling attention and elaborative responses so that they
are no longer vulnerable to such influences
Attention control
implementation intention among socially anxious people to control their attention responses
◦ individuals attend automatically to threatening information, thus fail to attend to task
relevant information
◦ study: used visual dot probe task to measure attention → two words presented
simultaneously and one is replaced by the letter E or F; some words are neutral others
are a social threat (e.g. stupid); participants have to indicate which letter was presented;
attentional bias depending on neutral or threatening word
→ socially anxious participants using if-then plan to pay attention to neutral
information had no attentional bias and was equivalent to that of non-anxious group
◦ study: doubt about whether performance on the visual dot probe task
reflects increased orientation towards threat or an inability to
disengage from threatening information → measured attention
disengagement and found that participants who formed
implementation intentions exhibited greater attention control in terms
of withdrawing attention compared to participants who formed mere
goal intentions
◦ study: implementation intentions can prevent alluring stimuli from
taking attention away from an ongoing task that demands much
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