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Abstract

Commitment to consistency (CC) theories have been widely studied in the field of social influence. However, studies on CC effect have examined only the decisions consumers make for themselves and have neglected the decisions made for others. Prior studies have indicated that the difference between decisions made for oneself and others can be explained by the psychological distance from construal level theory (CLT). Other studies have demonstrated the moderating effect of psychological distance (in the temporal dimension) on CC. The present study analyzed the effect of CC on consumers’ decisions made for themselves and for others and assessed whether the social dimension of psychological distance moderates CC. For this purpose, a study with a 2 (prior commitment: yes vs. no) × 2 (type of decision: for himself/herself vs. for others) experimental design evaluated 180 participants (between-subjects) living in the United States. The members of the experimental group were manipulated toward a commitment to healthy food products, and the participants’ choices for healthy versus unhealthy food products were analyzed. The results indicated that CC effect occurred not only on choices made for oneself but also when choices were made for others. However, the results did not confirm that the social dimension of psychological distance moderated CC. The results and implications of the use of CC as a strategy to influence consumers’ choice to eat healthy foods are discussed.

Keywords

social influence commitment-consistency self–other consumer choice psychological distance healthy food

Introduction

Different factors affect the choice behavior of consumers on a daily basis. Social influence can be defined as an external influence that changes behavior, attitudes, or beliefs (Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Some of the techniques used by marketing professionals to change consumer behavior are based on commitment to consistency (CC) theories. The CC principle postulates that individuals tend to make choices consistent with a prior commitment (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Cialdini & Trost, 1998). Although CC theories are based on a robust theoretical background (Brown, Asher, & Cialdini, 2005; Cialdini, Trost, & Newsom, 1995; Freedman & Fraser, 1966; Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal, 2005), studies have evidenced the existence of different psychological processes that together explain behavior consistency (Burger, 1999). The mediators and moderators of CC are not fully known to date (Burger, 1999), and thus more studies are needed to address this theoretical gap.

The studies on CC theories are restricted to consumers’ decisions made for themselves. However, consumers often make choices for others, including the choices made by parents to purchase food products for other family members and those made by an individual to choose a gift for a friend. The difference in the decision type (for oneself vs. for others) could be clarified by studies on decision making (Polman, 2012). However, no empirical studies to date have analyzed the CC principle in cases in which consumers make decisions for others. This theoretical gap needs to be filled.

Recent studies have addressed this subject by assessing the level of mental construal, originally known as the construal level theory (CLT; Baskin, Wakslak, Trope, & Novemsky, 2014; Lu, Xie, & Xu, 2013; Polman & Emich, 2011). The CLT postulates the existence of a psychological distance between the levels of mental construal, whereby decisions made for oneself represent a low mental level of interpretation, whereas decisions made for others represent a high level of mental construal (Andersson, Holm, Tyran, & Wengström, 2014; Liberman, Trope, & Stephan, 2007; Polman & Emich, 2011). The evidence suggests that consumer decision behavior differs between decisions that are made for oneself and others (Paolacci, Straeter, & de Hooge, 2015; Polman, 2012; Pronin, Olivola, & Kennedy, 2008), including the decisions on food products (healthy vs. unhealthy; Laran, 2010; Sproesser, Kohlbrenner, Schupp, & Renner, 2015), which are often made by consumers on behalf of other people.

Sproesser et al. (2015) compared the food choices made for oneself and others and concluded that individuals tended to choose healthier foods for themselves but not for others. Similarly, Laran (2010) identified differences in the consistency between sequential food choices made for oneself and others and demonstrated that the choices made for others tended to be consistently more indulgent than healthy. Considering healthy product as a choice for a health seeking goal and an indulgent product as a choice for pleasure seeking goal, this author suggests that future studies analyze the factors that may help individuals choose healthier food products.

Considering the public health problem of overconsumption of unhealthy food products, the assessment of whether CC-based techniques affect decision making about healthy food products is essential and requires the analysis of the self–other decisions of food products (healthy vs. indulgent).

This study analyzed the effect of CC on consumers’ decisions made for themselves and others using the experimental method applied to the context of consumer choices (healthy vs. indulgent products) and assessed the role of the variable “type of decision” (self–other) as a moderator of CC.

Theoretical Framework

CC theories rely on the assumption that individuals tend to show consistency in prior behaviors and commitments (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Cialdini & Trost, 1998). This phenomenon occurs because an individual’s need for constancy (Newcomb, 1953) is associated with positive aspects of the human character and is culturally valued by society (Sheldon, Ryan, Rawsthorne, & Ilardi, 1997). Consistency in humans involves the harmony between cognitions, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors (Newcomb, 1953). The need for consistency is a powerful motivator of human behavior.

Commitment is defined as the “obligation” assumed by an individual to behavior, direction, or action (Salancik, 1977). Breaking this obligation produces a negative reaction due to the nonfulfillment of a promise and anxiety about being considered inconsistent and unreliable (Pratkanis, 2007).

Several empirical studies presented evidence of the CC principle for different forms of commitment. For instance, verbal commitments demand behavioral consistency (Moriarty, 1975). However, people have a natural tendency to believe that what is written represents the true attitude of the author (Gawronski, 2003). Therefore, written or symbolically registered commitments (Freedman & Fraser, 1966), as well as commitments that are actively expressed (Cioffi & Garner, 1996) or assumed publicly (Burger & Cornelius, 2003), appear to increase the probability of consistency of the subsequent behavior.

In the marketing field, Vaidyanathan and Aggarwal (2005) found that committing to an environmental cause increased consumers’ preference for a product that defended that cause. Garnefeld, Eggert, Helm, and Tax (2013) observed that consumers who participated in referral programs to appoint new clients for a telephone company (a form of commitment) increased their loyalty to the brand. In the context of hospitality, Teng and Chang (2014) found that a people who committed to participate in a small sustainable task were more likely to participate in a larger sustainable task.

However, these results were obtained when consumers made choices for themselves. To the best of our knowledge, no prior studies to date have evaluated the effect of CC on consumers’ decisions made for others.

CLT

The CLT proposes that people directly experience only the present (here and now). Anything not experienced in the present is considered distant. Distant objects can be mentally construed and reconstrued but cannot be experienced directly (Liberman et al., 2007). This distance between the mental construal and the “here and now” is known as the psychological distance and is measured in terms of different levels: the greater the distance, the higher the level of mental construal, and the more abstract and decontextualized the object is, in turn, the shorter the distance, the lower the level of mental construal, and the more realistic, concrete, and contextualized the object is.

Psychological distance has several dimensions, including social distance, which can be represented by the difference between oneself and another individual, and temporal distance, which can be represented by the difference between the present and the future (Liberman et al., 2007).

Several studies have used social distance as a theoretical support for evaluating differences in self–other decisions. In this context, Polman and Emich (2011) conducted three experiments to assess whether the social distance between individuals affected their level of creativity. The authors found that individuals tended to be more creative when doing something for others than when doing something for themselves.

Prior studies compared social and temporal distance (Trope & Liberman, 2003). Most studies on temporal distance have shown that individuals tend to experience rewards in the present and leave the painful experiences for the future (Ainslie & Haslam, 1992; Read & Loewenstein, 2000). The same occurs with social distance. For example, people who need to allocate a limited amount of resources for themselves and others usually allocate more to themselves and reward those who are closer relative to those who are distant (Camerer, 2003; Diekmann, Samuels, Ross, & Bazerman, 1997). These studies confirm the results of Sproesser et al. (2015), who observed that people made healthier choices for themselves than for others, and of Laran (2010), who identified consistencies in unhealthy choices made for others.

Some studies showed similarities between the treatment of “self” in the future and “other” in the present regarding the psychological process involved. The decisions people make for future selves and other people are similar to each other and different from their decisions for present selves (Pronin & Ross, 2006). Laran (2010) confirmed this behavior by showing that people who made unhealthier choices for others and healthier choices for themselves in the present started to make healthier choices for others when the choices were made for a distant future.

Interaction Between CC and CLT

Although few studies have correlated the CC principle with the mental construal level (CLT), there is evidence that CC effect may produce different results for decisions made at different psychological distances or levels of mental construal (Teng & Chang, 2014). The studies that evaluated differences in self–other decisions supported by CLT focused on the temporal dimension of psychological distance (present vs. future; Gifford & Laran, 2010; Teng & Chang, 2014) and on the type of utility (viability vs. desirability; Baskin et al., 2014; Lee & Zhao, 2014; Lu et al., 2013). Nonetheless, no empirical studies to date have examined differences in CC effect on self–other consumer decisions (i.e., the social dimension of the CLT). The understanding of these differences may expand our knowledge of CC and CLT.

The CC principle is based on empirical evidence demonstrating the effect of prior commitment on subsequent behavior (Burger & Caldwell, 2003; Cialdini, Cacioppo, Bassett, & Miller, 1978; Freedman & Fraser, 1966; Garnefeld et al., 2013), including consumer choices (Garnefeld et al., 2013; Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal, 2005; Vaidyanathan, Aggarwal, & Kozłowski, 2013), which tend to be consistent with commitments made previously. Teng and Chang (2014) found that the CC principle was evidenced in consumer decisions made using a high level of mental construal (distant future), supporting the assumption that CC could also be evidenced when consumers decided for others because, as suggested by the CLT’s concept of psychological distance, deciding for others also constitutes a high level of mental construal. This notion is also supported by Pronin et al. (2008), who found a similarity in the decisions made for oneself in the future and decisions made for others in the present.

When applied to the context of food choices (healthy vs. indulgent), this study proposes that consumers tend to make healthier choices in cases in which they make a prior commitment to healthy cause than in cases in which they do not make a prior commitment. This effect of prior commitment vs. no commitment should be reflected on choices made for oneself and for others. Therefore, the first hypotheses are as follows:

Hypothesis 1a (H1a): A prior commitment affects the choice behavior of consumers in choices.

Hypothesis 1b (H1b): A prior commitment affects the choice behavior of consumers in choices made for themselves.

Hypothesis 1c (H1c): A prior commitment affects the choice behavior of consumers in choices made for others.

Liberman and Trope (2008) observed that people mentally experience different distances to a similar extent. For example, the processing used by individuals to interpret temporal distance (in which “near” reflects a low level of mental construal and “distant” reflects a high level of mental construal) is similar to the mechanism they use to interpret social distance (in which “oneself” reflects a low level of mental construal and “others” reflects a high level of mental construal). This similarity is empirically supported by Pronin et al. (2008), who concluded that “the decisions that people make for themselves in the distant future are similar to the decisions that people make for others” and that these decisions are different from those made for themselves in the present (Pronin et al., 2008).

Despite the strong empirical evidence, some studies have questioned the mechanisms underlying CC, suggesting that other psychological mechanisms may be involved in the process (Burger, 1999; Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004; Gorassini & Olson, 1995). This study proposes an analysis of the type of decision (self–other) as a possible moderator of the CC.

Teng and Chang (2014) found that CC occurred in cases in which the consumer made decisions using a high level of mental construal (distant future) but did not occur in cases in which the consumer made decisions using a low level of mental construal (near future), suggesting that psychological distance, in its temporal dimension, moderates CC. This study analyzed the proposed effect of the social dimension of psychological distance on CC based on the results of Teng and Chang (2014). Specifically, the present study analyzed whether CC effect is stronger when consumers decide for others (i.e., using a high level of mental construal) than when they decide for themselves (i.e., using a low level of construal). By considering the choice of either healthy or indulgent food products, the study evaluated whether the increase in healthy choices in groups activated for a healthy commitment would be greater for people who made a choice for others than for people who made a choice for themselves relative to those who made no prior commitment. Therefore, the following hypothesis was proposed:

Hypothesis 2 (H2): The variable “type of decision” (for oneself vs. others) moderates the relation between prior commitment and consumer choice, so that the increase in healthy choices due to a prior commitment is greater when consumers decide for others than when they decide for themselves.

This hypothesis goes against the natural intuition that the choices made for oneself are healthier than those made for others because, according to Sproesser et al. (2015), this behavior occurs with no prior commitment. It also contradicts the likely intuition that CC effect is stronger for self-decisions than decisions made for others, considering that the prior commitment is not known by the individual for whom the choice was made; it is an intrinsic process, motivated by the intended positive reinforcement of the self-concept and supported by the need for consistency (Newcomb, 1953).

Method

This experiment assessed the effect of prior commitment to health on the consistency of consumer choice to determine whether this effect occurred in the decisions consumers made for themselves and also for others. The dependent variable (choice) is considered consistent when consumers choose a healthy food product and inconsistent when consumers choose an indulgent food product. The second objective of this study was to analyze the proposed interaction between the variables, that is, the effect of CC on the type of decision made (self–other).

Although the choice options used in this study (healthy vs. indulgent food products) were adapted from Laran’s (2010) study, a pretest was conducted to assess the availability of products in the U.S. market and to identify one representative food product in each category with which to measure the dependent variable (healthy vs. indulgent choice).

A total of 129 participants who responded to an online questionnaire using the Qualtrics tool were recruited using the Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk). Of these, 14 were excluded for not having completed the test, resulting in 115 participants. The recruitment criteria were the same as those of the main study. A total of 17 products were tested, 16 of them based on the study by Laran (2010; Doritos chips, ice cream, doughnuts, oreos, Chips Ahoy cookies, Fruit Roll-Ups, chocolate bar, cheese curls. Healthy: granola bar, apple, raisins, celery sticks, Cheerios oats, low fat yogurt, baby carrots, rice cake) and 1 added (fruit salad). The participants answered questions about how indulgent or healthy the products were on a 7-point semantic differential scale. The availability of products in the U.S. market was assessed by preparing a questionnaire with closed (yes/no) answers.

The differences in the average scores of respondents’ perceptions of whether each food item was healthy or indulgent were calculated. The products with the highest results were apples (healthy) and donuts (indulgent). The selected products showed statistically significant differences in participant evaluations about how healthy (p = .000; t = –55.499) and how indulgent (p = .000; t = 13.739) the products were. Regarding product availability, 99.1% of the participants responded that both apples and donuts were currently available in the United States.

Study Design and Data Collection

The study used a between-subjects 2 (prior commitment: yes vs. no) × 2 (type of decision: self vs. others) experimental design combining the proposals of the two theories (CC and CLT). Prior commitment (yes vs. no) represented CC, whereas the decision type (self–other) represented the CLT for the social psychological distance. The dependent variable was the consistency of consumer choice in the commitment previously made in the experimental condition (health cause). Therefore, the study tested the effect of prior commitment to health on the consumer choice of food products (healthy vs. indulgent) in cases in which consumers made decisions for oneself and others.

The sample consisted of 208 participants living in the United States who were randomly distributed using the Qualtrics tool between the four study conditions: (1) WITH prior commitment + decision for ONESELF; (2) WITH prior commitment + decision for OTHERS; and (3) WITHOUT prior commitment + decision for ONESELF; (4) WITHOUT prior commitment + decision for OTHERS. Of these, 28 participants were excluded because they did not pass the attention checks or had preexisting diseases that limited their intake of products with characteristics similar to those used in the experiment. Therefore, the study included 180 participants, of whom 51.7% were men and 48.3% were women, and the average age was 35.9 years. The demographic characteristics were similar between the study groups, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1.

Age and Gender of Respondents by Experiment Groups.

Commitment	Type of decision	M	SD	N	Male	Female
With prior commitment	Self	34.02	13.11	51	43.1%	56.9%
	Other	38.33	13.33	39	48.7%	51.3%
	Total	35.89	13.31	90	45.6%	54.4%
Without prior commitment	Self	37.11	12.60	44	56.8%	43.2%
	Other	34.89	11.35	46	58.7%	41.3%
	Total	35.98	11.97	90	57.8%	42.2%
Total	Self	35.45	12.91	95	49.5%	50.5%
	Other	36.47	12.35	85	54.1%	45.9%
	Total	35.93	12.62	180	51.7%	48.3%

The study participants were MTurk workers living in the United States, who received a reward of US$0.30 for completing the questionnaire. The questionnaire was made available on the MTurk platform aleatory between Americans who have at least 95% of tasks accepted in their MTurk history. This procedure is justified by (a) the simplicity of data collection; (b) the ability to manage the profiles of the participants; and (c) the effective performance of the tool as recognized by studies published in high-impact factor journals. Paolacci, Chandler, and Ipeirotis (2010) and Paolacci and Chandler (2014) reported that MTurk could be considered a source of reliable data for experimental studies.

The inclusion of participants living in the United States is justified, because prior studies that proposed hypotheses similar to ours were carried out in the United States and to avoid the influence of cultural variables on CC Effect (Petrova, Cialdini, & Sills, 2007). In addition, the data collection tools and scales used in this study were adapted from studies conducted in the United States (Laran, 2010; Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal, 2005), and MTurk’s base of participants available for sampling is larger in the United States than in other countries.

Manipulation

The manipulation used in prior studies on CC consisted of exposing the experimental group to manipulated commitment and omitting this step in the control group, thereby avoiding the need to perform a neutral procedure as a control of the manipulation (Freedman & Fraser, 1966; Garnefeld et al., 2013). This study used the same procedure, as explained in the study design.

Prior commitment to health was manipulated in the experimental groups by modifying the instrument used by Vaidyanathan and Aggarwal (2005) and Vaidyanathan et al. (2013). These authors have manipulated commitment by asking participant’s to expose their attitude toward an environmental cause, using five statements measured in a 5-point Likert-type scale. The instrument applied in this study followed the same structure, but replacing statements forward an environmental cause for statements forward a healthy cause. Based on prior studies and common sense, most participants were expected to have a favorable attitude toward health (Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal, 2005). Only one participant showed an unfavorable attitude (with an average lower than 2.5 on a five-point Likert-type scale) and thus was excluded from the study.

After being informed about the experiment, the participants of the experimental conditions (1 and 2, WITH prior commitment) responded to a questionnaire with six statements, using a 5-point Likert-type scale. They were asked to express their attitudes in favor of healthy food products in such a way as to express an active commitment to it. The participants of the control groups (3 and 4, WITHOUT prior commitment) did not undergo this manipulation and were asked to answer the next question.

Subsequently, the dependent variable of the study was measured. All participants were introduced to a scenario in which they could choose between a healthy product (apple) or unhealthy product (donut). The manipulation of the decision type was controlled by separating the groups according to the type of decision made (for oneself vs. others) in the between-subjects design. Participants who made choices for themselves were introduced to the following scenario: “Imagine you went grocery shopping to choose a snack for yourself to eat today. Please select a snack that you’re going to get.” The participants who made choices for others were given the following scenario: “Imagine that you went grocery shopping and one of your friends asked you to select snacks for him or her to eat today. Please select a snack that you’re going to get for your friend.” The scenarios for the decision type were adapted from Laran (2010).

The manipulation checks indicated that a prior commitment manipulation for health and a realism check were effective. A significant difference in the degrees of commitment was observed between the group that underwent manipulation and the control group regarding the decisions made for oneself (t = 2.10; p = .038) and others (t = 2.52; p = .014). There was no significant difference in the perceptions of realism between the two conditions (p = .09). All other manipulation checks were also successful. The questionnaire was created in English by the author and was validated by an external native English-speaking consultant. Adaptations were based on studies written in English to minimize the risks inherent in translation. Other variables such as age, gender, and preference for consistency (PFCs) were controlled. PFC was measured through single-item need for consistency scale (SIN-C; Nichols & Webster, 2014).

Results

As explained previously, we predicted that a prior commitment to a healthy cause influence consumer choice toward a healthy product (apple). The relative frequency of choosing healthy products was higher (69%) in the groups with activated prior commitment than in the control groups (31%) (Table 2). The analysis of the applied logistic regression indicated that prior commitment affected consumer choice, Wald χ²(1) = 24.378, p = .000, which confirms H1a.

Table 2.

Statistics of the Model Predicting a Food Health Choice With and Without Commitment (95% BCa Bootstrap CIs Based on 1,000 Samples).

Commitment	Apple	Doughnuts	b	Wald	95% CI for odds ratio
Commitment	Apple	Doughnuts	b	Wald	Lower	Odds	Upper
With	62 (68.9%)	28 (31.1%)	–1.59*	24.378	0.109	0.204	0.383
Without	28 (31.1%)	62 (68.9%)	[–2.28, –0.96]

Note. R² = .14 (Cox & Snell), .18 (Nagelkerke). Model χ²(1) = 26.34. CI = confidence interval; Bca = bias corrected and accelerated.

p < .01.

The comparison of the effect of prior commitment between decision type conditions (self vs. others) revealed that CC effect occurred in both groups (Table 3). Therefore, a prior commitment to health increased the chance of choosing healthy products for oneself, in 2.889 times = Exp. B, Wald χ²(1) = 6.175, p = .012 (confirms H1b) and others, in 9.164 times = Exp. B, Wald χ²(1) = 19.290, p = .000 (confirms H1c).

Table 3.

Statistics of the Model Predicting a Food Health Choice With and Without Commitment × for Self and Others (95% BCa Bootstrap CIs Based on 1,000 Samples).

Type of decision	Apple	Doughnuts	b	Wald	95% CI for odds ratio
Type of decision	Apple	Doughnuts	b	Wald	Lower	Odds	Upper
Self
With commitment	34 (66.7%)	17 (33.3%)	1.061*	6.175	1.251	2.889	6.670
Without commitment	18 (40.9%)	26 (59.1%)	[0.243, 1.940]
Others
With commitment	28 (71.8%)	11 (28.2%)	0.215*	19.290	3.410	9.164	24.626
Without commitment	10 (21.7%)	36 (78.3%)	[1.270, 3.391]

Note. Self, R² =.065 (Cox & Snell), .087 (Nagelkerke). Model χ²(1) = 6.385, *p = .012. Others, R² = .231 (Cox & Snell), .309 (Nagelkerke). Model χ²(1) = 22.310, *p < .01. CI = confidence interval; Bca = bias corrected and accelerated.

There was no significant difference (Wald = 0.271, p = .603) in the frequency of healthy choices between the decision type conditions (oneself = 67% vs. others = 72%) in the group with a prior commitment (Graph 2). However, there was a marginally significant difference (p = .052, Wald = 3.76) in the frequency of healthy choices between the decision type conditions (oneself = 41% vs. others = 22%) in the control groups. Therefore, the group without a prior commitment (control) was more likely to choose healthy products for themselves than for others.

Hypothesis 2 proposes that the effect of prior commitment on CC is moderated by the decision type (oneself vs. others). The decisions for oneself are made at a psychological distance different from that of decisions made for others (Liberman et al., 2007); consequently, the decisions are also different (Laran, 2010; Polman, 2012; Polman & Emich, 2011). Teng and Chang (2014) found differences in CC effect for decisions made at different psychological distances; CC effect was stronger at a higher level of mental construal (higher psychological distance). If these results were replicated in this study, CC effect would be stronger with choices made for others compared with choices made for oneself, indicating a moderating role of the decision type. However, logistic regression, including the interaction between the decision type and prior commitment, indicated the absence of significant interactions (p = .081; Table 4). Therefore, the results of this study provided no evidence that the decision type (oneself vs. others considering the social dimension of psychological distance) moderated CC at a 95% confidence level.

Table 4.

Results of Moderation Analysis.

	Coefficient	SE	Z	p
Constant	–0.6931	0.297	–2.3335	.0196
Commitment	1.0609	0.4269	2.4850	.0130
Self–others	–0.2412	0.4635	–0.5203	.6029
Commitment × self–others	1.1544	0.6608	1.7469	.0806

Note. R² = .155 (Cox & Snell), .201 (Nagelkerke).

In addition to the tests performed to analyze the main effect, other tests were conducted to identify other effects that could be explained by a control variable. Logistic regression using all variables in the model demonstrated that gender, age, and PFC exerted no effect on consumer choice. This result was confirmed by analyses that isolated the variables, gender, and age.

However, in additional analyses segmented into groups, the PFC presented a different result in a logistic regression applied to all variables in the model. Specifically, in the group condition that decided for others, there was a significant difference (t = 4.067; p = .000) in the average PFC between the experimental group (WITH prior commitment; 7.72) and the control group (6.30).

Discussion

The results of this study confirmed the findings of prior investigations that support the CC principle (Cialdini et al., 1978; Freedman & Fraser, 1966; Garnefeld et al., 2013; Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal, 2005), according to which prior commitment affects subsequent choice behaviors when individuals decide for themselves. However, our results indicated that CC also occurred when consumers decided for others, which is consistent with the proposed positive self-concept reinforcement of Newcomb (1953), whereby, although the decision is made for others, the need for consistency is based on consumers’ behaviors and prior commitments.

Research on the difference of self–other decisions is in its infancy (Polman & Emich, 2011). This study confirmed the CLT-based findings that choices for oneself are different from choices for others when there is no prior commitment and demonstrated that people are more likely to choose healthier products for themselves than for others. This result is consistent with those of Sproesser et al. (2015) but indicates a relevant change when a prior commitment is activated. The choices of healthy products were similar in the groups that decided for themselves and those that decided for others, whereas prior commitment significantly increased the likelihood of choosing healthy food products in both groups. Considering the frequency with which consumers choose for others, the activation of prior commitment to a healthy cause may stimulate people to follow a healthier diet.

Although Wingert, Zachary, Fox, Gittelsohn, and Surkan (2014) found evidences that children can influence shopping for unhealthy food when they are present in a grocery store, their study did not test effect of prior commitment. Interventions to promote healthy food ordering should consider the multiple sources of influence that are operating when ordering for and by children in restaurants, and parental involvement in ordering food in a restaurant are usual, although it tend to be less frequent with older children (Castro et al., 2016). Effect of prior commitment on parents could be a useful strategy to have a healthier diet especially for small children.

Gender and age did not seem to change the effect of CC on the choice of healthy food products, despite the evidence (Brown et al., 2005) that individuals older than 50 years are more susceptible to CC-based techniques. The evidence that PFC influenced choices may be the result of the methodological limitations of this study, such as the use of a reduced scale or the effect of prior manipulation.

The test used to evaluate whether the decision type could moderate CC failed to confirm that the CLT, at least in its social dimension, influenced the relationship between prior Commitment and Consistency of consumer choice. These results disagree with those of Teng and Chang (2014), wherein psychological distance in the temporal dimension moderated CC effect.

These inconsistencies between the results may have different explanations. For example, although Liberman and Trope (2008) found a “considerable similarity in the way people assess different psychological distances,” individual perceptions about different dimensions of the psychological distance (temporal and social) may differ using the CC principle; CC might be moderated by temporal distance (near future vs. distant future) but not moderated by social distance (oneself vs. others). This possibility is reinforced by the fact that the theoretical framework of CC is based on empirical studies that reported the presence of CC effect in consumer choices for themselves (smaller psychological distance; Cialdini et al., 1978; Freedman & Fraser, 1966; Garnefeld et al., 2013; Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal, 2005), in contrast to the results of Teng and Chang (2014), who found no evidence of CC effect in decisions made for a near future (smaller psychological distance).

The inconsistencies could also be explained by analyzing the psychological distance at which the commitment is made relative to the psychological distance at which the choice is made. For example, this study used the same manipulation instrument for both experimental conditions (oneself vs. others), whereas the participants of the study of Teng and Chang (2014), who planned for a distant future, had previously been committed to a distant future. In contrast, those who planned for a near future had previously been committed to a near future. Therefore, it is necessary to better understand the relationship between the psychological distance at which prior commitment is made and the psychological distance at which the choice is made.

The inconsistent results may be because this study simulated scenarios about choices made only in the present, but at different social distances. Conversely, Teng and Chang (2014) simulated scenarios about consumer choices for themselves but at different temporal distances. As mentioned previously, there is evidence of similarities between these dimensions. For example, consumer choices for oneself in the future were similar to the choices for others in the present (Pronin et al., 2008), and thus the intersection of the different dimensions of psychological distance on CC needs to be better understood. Despite these research gaps, this study advanced the theory and practice of marketing, as detailed below.

Theoretical and Management Implications

This study complements the evidence found in prior studies, whereby choices for others are different from choices for oneself (Polman, 2012; Polman & Emich, 2011), at least in cases in which there is no prior commitment. Moreover, this study adds evidence that these choices may be similar in cases of prior commitment. This study complements that of Laran (2010), which found differences in the consistency of choices for healthy vs. indulgent food products at different psychological distances.

This study increases our knowledge about choices of healthy food products for oneself and others (Sproesser et al., 2015) and demonstrated that CC-based techniques can influence choices of healthy food products not only for oneself but also for others, supported by the social distance (CLT). These findings are especially helpful for children health as Coppinger, Jeanes, Dabinett, Vögele, and Reeves (2010) found that peers were found to influence physical activity behavior but not dietary intake in children. So, this study findings could provide an alternative strategy for helping children to have a healthy diet.

In addition, this study offered empirical evidence about the interaction between CC and CLT in the social dimension. These results may help to shed light into a boundary condition of both CC and CLT theories which has been little explored to date.

Our results suggest that CC-based techniques used by marketing professionals can be effective in companies that sell products for which the agent of the purchase decision is not the same individual who will consume them—for instance, the purchase of toys or food products made by other family members.

Marketing communication campaigns intended to encourage sales during holidays such as Mother’s Day or Christmas, when gifts are exchanged, may obtain better results by using CC-based techniques. Furthermore, companies should consider using these techniques for clients who intend to make choices for others.

As nearly the entire U.S. population consumes a diet that is not on par with recommendations (Krebs-Smith, Guenther, Subar, Kirkpatrick, & Dodd, 2010) and people are less likely to make healthier choices for others (Sproesser et al., 2015), governmental and private institutions, when implementing initiatives to improve the health of the population, could focus on individuals who buy food products for others (e.g., supermarket shopping or purchase of gifts for special occasions) and use CC in communication campaigns to generate a prior commitment to the health of others and stimulate choices for healthier products. This strategy can also be applied in situations in which caregivers are responsible for feeding disabled persons (e.g., older people and children).

The results of this study have implications for consumers. The awareness of the effect of prior commitment on subsequent choices including choices made for others may increase the attention levels of consumers, particularly when choosing products for other persons during marketing campaigns from companies which are trying to influence them.

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Studies

This study has some methodological limitations. First, the sample population should have comprised 190 participants but, after the exclusions, comprised only 180 subjects.

Second, only participants living in the United States were used in the study, although some studies advocate the research of the CC principle in other countries (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004). In this respect, there is evidence of differences in CC effect between different cultures (Cialdini, Wosinska, Barrett, Butner, & Gornik-Durose, 1999; Heine & Lehman, 1997; Schouten, 2008; Vaidyanathan & Aggarwal, 2005).

The evaluation of consumer choice of only food products may limit the ability to extrapolate the results to other conditions. Therefore, additional studies should evaluate other contexts, including services.

Future studies should obtain empirical evidence to explain the inconsistency between the results of this study and those of Teng and Chang (2014) on the moderation of CC by psychological distance and determine whether other factors can explain the difference between social and temporal distance. These studies should assess the moderating effect in social distance by analyzing if the results would be different whether the psychological distance of prior commitment had the same psychological distance of choices.

Moreover, future studies should examine the differences between the psychological distance and how it affects CC and compare CC at different levels of psychological distance (e.g., oneself, a close friend, and a distant acquaintance; or at present, in the near future, and in the distant future).

This study evaluated the variables that could have confounded the main effect, including age and PFC (Brown et al., 2005; Cialdini et al., 1995). Although the literature shows that individuals older than 50 years tend to have a greater PFC (Brown et al., 2005), our results did not evidence this difference because this study was not designed for this purpose and this type of analysis was not the objective of the study.

The significant difference in the PFC index between participants from the experimental and control groups (WITH vs. WITHOUT prior commitment) that made decisions for others may suggest that the consistency for healthy choices on the dependent variable can be partly explained by the PFC (Cialdini et al., 1995; Guadagno, Asher, Demaine, & Cialdini, 2001) and that, even with randomization, it was not possible to ensure a perfect distribution of individual participant characteristics between the groups. In contrast, the rate of healthy choices among participants with a prior commitment was significantly higher than that in the control group, suggesting that, despite the possible influence of individual characteristics (PFCs), the effect of prior commitment on the dependent variable is the primary contributor to the consistency of choices of healthy products.

Considering that the PFC was determined after the manipulation and the assessment of the dependent variable, the manipulation and subsequent demonstration of consistency (choice for a healthy product) might have influenced the scale response because the CC principle postulates that people tend to be consistent with their prior commitments and behaviors (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).

In addition, the use of a SIN-C to measure PFC (Nichols & Webster, 2014) may justify the interference of PFC in the dependent variable. The single item of this scale included one element with a greater social distance (“I struggle to look consistent to others”), which may have exerted a strong effect, specifically in the group “WITH prior commitment + decision for OTHERS.” Future studies may address this problem by using the full PFC scale (18 items) when analyzing the effect of the decision type (oneself vs. others) on CC effect.

Although Wingert et al. (2014) found evidences that children can influence shopping for unhealthy food when they are present in a grocery store, their study did not test effect of prior commitment. It may be an interesting issue for future research.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Cláudio Damacena

Author Biographies

Sérgio Silva Demoliner master of Management from Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Consultant in the commercial area and businessman in healthcare, gastronomy and clothing markets.

Cláudio Damacena professor of Marketing in Business School Pontifical Catholic University of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil.

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The Effect of Prior Commitment on Consumer Choice

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Theoretical Framework

CLT

Interaction Between CC and CLT

Method

Study Design and Data Collection

Manipulation

Results

Discussion

Theoretical and Management Implications

Limitations and Suggestions for Future Studies

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Author Biographies

References