Our initial investigations of the influence of autonomy and restriction effects on academic and health motivations are reported in Don’t Tell Me What to Do: Highly Restrictive Goals Promote Temptation Indulgence (Buzinski and Price, 2015). Click here to download article.

Academic motivation. We found that framing academic goals in terms of their restrictions (vs. guiding properties) was sufficient to cause an increase in students’ desire to procrastinate. One reason for this shift is that the reactance engendered by restrictions renders temptations “multifinal” (i.e., means that simultaneously serve two goals). In other words, in the restrictive goal framing condition procrastination allowed students to both avoid work, as well as to rebuke a threat to their behavioral freedom, imbuing it with greater value for the effort.

Health motivation. Similarly, framing health goals in terms of their restrictions (e.g., “you must not eat X”) increased participants’ desire to indulge in goal-damaging temptations. Specifically, participants on a healthy eating plan ate significantly more chocolate chip cookies (the goal-damaging temptation) after considering the restrictive (vs. guiding) aspects of their own goal (see below).