"We Can Do This the Easy Way or the Hard Way": Negative Emotions, Self-Regulation, and the Law
Year: 2006
Type: article
Abstract: INTRODUCTION: THE EASY WAY AND THE HARD WAYIf you ever have the misfortune to be interrogated, and the experience resembles its depiction in movies, it is likely that your interrogator will inform you that "we can do this the easy way or the hard way."The interrogator is telling you, with an economy of words, that you are going to spill the beans; the only question is whether you will also get tortured-which is the hard way.In this Essay, we argue that much consumption follows a similar pattern, except that the torturer is oneself.Because humans are inherently myopic, we train ourselves, or are trained (via parenting, schooling, etc.), to experience immediate negative emotions such as guilt and fear when we succumb to various types of temptations.These immediate negative emotions serve the function of bringing the negative consequences of current indulgence into the present, thereby counteracting what would otherwise be a natural tendency to discount them.Such threats are often a successful source of self-regulationindeed, they may be the main thing that keeps us from overeating, overspending, taking excessive risks, or behaving selfishly.When they fail to serve their purpose, however, these negative emotions impose costs with no corresponding benefits-much like spilling the beans after being tortured.In such instances, people, in effect, pay twice for their indulgences: they incur the material negative consequences that result, and they also experience negative emotions as a result of their lapse.The lapsing dieter, for example, not only must deal with the health and appearance consequences of overeating, but also experiences guilt and shame while eating.The use of negative emotions is a crude method of self-control, and in particular it is difficult to apply such emotions to only illegitimate activities.As a result, people can develop a kind of neurotic attit
Source: bepress Legal Repository
Authors: George Loewenstein, Ted O’Donoghue
Language: English
Subfield: General Decision Sciences
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: National Science Foundation
OpenAlex ID: W2245717167