Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Repenting hyperopia: Drink now or forever hold your peace!

Some people drink because they are impulsive, make myopic choices and are time inconsistent. They can't resist indulgence and are largely affected by the proximity of the stimulus and how attractive and tempting it is. Other factors like sleep deprivation, negative mood and as has recently been found self-control depletion affect impulsivity (Vohrs & Faber, 2007). On the other side people forsee to an extent that their behaviour may have negative consequences in terms of guilt and anticipated regret. However, it has recently been shown that curiosity is a good cure for anticipated regret (Dijk & Zeelenberg, 2007). I've often heard hardened drinkers refer to the prospect of a nights heavy drinking as "a throw of the dice, not knowing what's going to happen". People are more likely to bet large sums on the throw of a dice before it happens than after a concealed roll has happened. Curiosity and anticipation may be the best tools to use to lure the drinker with a degree of self-control into a binge. As Budweiser have recently emphasised when it comes to drinking many of us feel the urge to "answer the call" which may be influenced by the lure of largely unknown possibilities.

However, what about the prudent drinker, the one who almost always chooses the book over the bottle? Well it appears there is a cost in that the regret the hyperopic consumer feels at missing out on the good times increases over time whilst the guilt associated with hitting the bottle rather than the books diminishes over time (Kivetz & Keinan, 2006). The self-controlled suffer their virtue in this way. The question is can these wistful feeling of regret at passing up the pleasures in life actually promote drinking in those for which this may not be their natural bent. Do some prudent people occasionally answer the call because they anticipate not doing so will generate future regret? Similarly do indulgent people occassionally refrain because of anticipated future regrets such as those relating to health? Doubtless, both processes of ambivalence occur to an extent and this may happen even outside awareness due the effect of anticipated conflict reactions which may promote ambivalence now even if ones reaction to in this case drinking is immediately positive or negative (Priester et al., 2007). In a culture where heavy drinking is inherent to socialising holding ones peace may be more difficult than it seems!

2 comments:

Liam Delaney said...

Regrets, I've had a few, but then again, too few to mention.
I did, what I had to do, and saw it through, without exemption.
I planned, each charted course, each careful step, along the byway,
and more, much more than this,
I did it my way.



Non! Rien de rien ...
Non ! Je ne regrette rien
Ni le bien qu'on m'a fait
Ni le mal tout ça m'est bien égal !

Non ! Rien de rien ...
Non ! Je ne regrette rien...
C'est payé, balayé, oublié
Je me fous du passé!

Anonymous said...

Michael. I meant to commnet on this post before to say that you had some very interesting ideas written up about drinking behaviour. The importance of the expectation about the unknown is an intriguing propistion, and I like the way you linked it to that Budweiser advertising campaign.

I'm currently musing over a theory of self-regulation and regret after last night!