Taking care of you and me: How choosing for others impacts self-indulgence within family caregiving relationships

Consumers frequently make choices for family members they take care of or from whom they receive care (e.g., their children or partner), yet marketing research has given little attention to how these other-oriented choices might impact the chooser's self-indulgence. In this research we consider familial caregiving relationships as a relevant and ubiquitous context of other-oriented choices and identify the role of the chooser (i.e., caregiver versus care-receiver) as an important moderator that determines when virtuous other-oriented choices within caregiving relationships lead to licensing and when they encourage consistent virtuous consumption behaviors. Three studies demonstrate that making virtuous food choices for others affect the chooser's subsequent self-regulatory behavior in two ways: After making a virtuous choice for a care-receiving other (e.g., a young child), caregivers (e.g., parents) are more likely to license, and thus to subsequently self-indulge (Study 1, 3). In contrast, care-receivers are more likely to act consistently with an initial virtuous choice for the caregiver and thus are less likely to self-indulge (Study 2, 3). Our findings extend research on moral licensing and consistency effects by demonstrating that—within familial caregiving relationships—the degree to which one receives and provides care may determine when choosers engage in licensing and when they act consistently with an initial virtuous other-oriented choice.