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The current research demonstrates that temporally separating a consumer’s initial decision to perform a guilt-inducing action from its actual enactment reduces the guilt felt while acting. This hypothesis follows from the development of a dynamic model that unpacks guilt into two distinct components. Initially, one experiences decision guilt accompanying the decision to act or the realization that one will act; subsequently, one experiences action guilt while engaging in the guilt-inducing behavior. Four experiments and two pilot studies reveal that introducing a temporal “decision-enactment gap” enables decision guilt to decay in this interim period, which lowers the overall guilt experienced upon acting. In line with the self-regulative function of guilt, decision-enactment gaps also increase indulgent consumption and decrease post-behavior atonement. This decoupling process can thus alleviate guilt that might otherwise detract from experiences, but may come at a cost to self-control efforts. The authors discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.

The ideologically objectionable premise model posits that biased political judgments can emerge across the political spectrum. Previous tests of ideological differences in political judgment biases have utilized between-subjects designs (i.e., separate comparisons). In this study ( N = 410), we examined whether these biases also emerge in within-subjects designs (i.e., joint comparisons) and compared the strengths of judgment biases in between-subjects and within-subjects designs. Across designs, both liberals and conservatives favored sympathetic over unsympathetic targets in scenario judgments, but biases were attenuated in the within-subjects design. No ideological differences in bias strength emerged, although liberals reported a stronger internal motivation to respond without prejudice toward ideologically dissimilar others. Further, consistent with the ideological conflict hypothesis, both liberals and conservatives were prejudiced toward ideologically dissimilar targets, although biases in prejudice ratings were stronger among liberals than conservatives. Together, results support the ideological symmetry perspective on political bias and prejudice.

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Incentives are an increasingly common tool used by organizations, managers, and policymakers to change behavior. We propose that more than just motivating behavior for monetary reasons, incentives also have an important, undiscovered consequence: they leak information about social norms. Four experiments reveal that framing an incentive as a surcharge, as compared to a discount, signals that the incentivized behavior is both more socially approved and more common. These implied norms lead individuals to experience emotions consistent with a desire to conform, motivating them to perform the incentivized behavior. Moreover, by shifting social norms, we find that incentives can influence behavior not only in the moment, but also downstream when there is no longer an active incentive. Further, merely being exposed to a surcharge (vs. discount) incentive-even without being financially affected by it-can increase performance of the behavior. These findings offer a novel perspective on the consequences of different incentive frames, while contributing to both organizational policy and practice by expanding the social norms messaging toolkit.