Atoning Past Indulgences: Oral Consumption and Moral Compensation

Previous research has shown that moral failures increase compensatory behaviors, such as prosociality and even self-punishment, because they are strategies to re-establish one's positive moral self-image. Do similar compensatory behaviors result from violations in normative eating practices? Three experiments explored the moral consequences of recalling instances of perceived excessive food consumption. In Experiment 1 we showed that women recalling an overeating (vs. neutral) experience reported more guilt and a desire to engage in prosocial behavior in the form of so-called self-sacrificing. In Experimental 2 this logic was applied to actual spontaneous helping behaviors towards an experimenter, with participants who recalled an overeating (vs. neutral) experience exhibiting more such helping in the laboratory. Experimental 3 expanded the investigation to self-inflicted pain: Overeating (vs. neutral) recall led to higher levels of self-punishment as indicted by longer time periods spent engaging in the cold-pressor task. In sum, failures in normative food consumption can be viewed as moral transgressions that elicits both interpersonal and intrapersonal compensatory behaviors aimed at restoring a positive moral self-image.