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The use of idealized advertising models has been heavily criticized in recent years. Existing research typically adopts a social comparison framework and shows that upward comparisons with models can lower self‐esteem and affect, as well as produce maladaptive behavior. However, the alternative possibility that consumers can cope with threatening advertising models by excelling in other behavioral domains has not been examined. The present research draws on fluid compensation theory (Tesser, 2000) and shows that idealized models motivate improved performance in consumer domains that fall outside that of the original comparison. These more positive coping effects operate through self‐discrepancies induced by idealized models, rather than self‐esteem or negative affect. Specifically, self‐discrepancies motivate consumers to improve decision‐making by: 1) making more optimal choices from well‐specified consideration sets, and 2) better self‐regulating indulgent choices. More broadly, the current research integrates and extends theories of fluid compensation and self‐discrepancy, as well as provides a more complete picture of the ways in which consumers cope with idealized advertising models.

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Consumers frequently experience goal conflict, where they have to choose between staying on course to achieve a goal and succumbing to a tempting indulgence that interrupts goal pursuit. This study introduces a novel strategy consumers use to justify the choice of an indulgent (goal‐conflicting) option over a righteous (goal‐aligned) one. In three experimental studies involving real consumption decisions, the authors show that before choosing a goal‐conflicting option over a goal‐aligned one, consumers overstate the severity of their life problems before making their choice to feel more deserving of the indulgence. This justification strategy is apparent when the goal‐conflicting option is chosen over a goal‐aligned option (vs. over another goal‐conflicting option—i.e., no goal conflict), and when the severity of life problems is reported before (vs. after) making the final choice. Furthermore, the findings reveal a positive downstream consequence of the proposed justification strategy on choice satisfaction. These findings contribute to the growing research on consumers' tendency to create reasons to justify indulgences, in this case at the expense of deliberately degrading one's current state to feel more deserving of indulgence.

Consumers are often exposed to recurrent temptations that might threaten the achievement of their long‐term goals (e.g., savings, diet), and while they might initially resist the temptation, they may find that with the passage of time, they eventually indulge in the goal‐conflicting act. In such instances, does the ultimate goal failure undermine consumers' perceptions of self‐control, or does the mere act of delaying the goal transgression serve to buffer against negative self‐views? In the current research, we term delayed goal failure the sequence of events whereby a consumer initially resists a goal‐conflicting temptation, but upon subsequent exposure to the same temptation, follows through with the goal transgression. Our findings show that delayed (vs. immediate) goal failure allows consumers to maintain positive perceptions of self‐control, particularly when the cause of failure is unspecified (i.e., open to interpretation), allowing consumers to interpret their ultimate decision as thought‐through and justified. Finally, our findings reveal a positive downstream effect of delayed (vs. immediate) goal failure on subsequent self‐regulation, and identify positive perceptions of self‐control as the underlying driver of this effect.