SEMINAR
Kathleen Vohs, University of Minnesota
Weds May 18, 2:00p to 3:30p, Judge Business School, room W2.01

'What do people desire? 7000 experience sampling reports of everyday
desire, conflict, restraint, and behavior'

We investigated desire and attempts to control desire in everyday life by
conducting a large-scale experience sampling study based on a conceptual
framework integrating desire strength, conflict, resistance (use of
self-control), and behavior enactment. A sample of several hundred adults
wore beepers for a week and furnished 7,827 reports of desire episodes.
Results suggest that desires are frequent, variable in intensity, and
largely unproblematic. Across various desire domains, there were
substantial differences in desire frequency and strength, the degree of
conflict between the desire and other goals, and the likelihood of
resisting desire and the success of this resistance. Desires for sleep and
sex were experienced most intensively, whereas desires for tobacco and
alcohol had the lowest average strength, despite the fact that these
substances are thought of as addictive. Desires for leisure and sleep
conflicted the most with other goals, and desires for media use and work
brought about the most self-control failure. Those urges that did conflict
with other goals tend to elicit resistance, with uneven success. Desire
strength, conflict, resistance, and self-regulatory success were moderated
in multiple ways by personality variables as well as by situational and
interpersonal factors such as alcohol consumption, the mere presence of
others, and the presence of others who were enacting the desire in
question. Whereas personality generally had a stronger impact on the
dimensions of desire that emerged early in its course (desire strength and
conflict), situational factors showed relatively more influence on
components later in the process (resistance and behavior enactment). In
total, these findings offer a novel and detailed perspective on the nature
of everyday desires and associated self-regulatory successes and failures.

Kathleen Vohs
website & downloadable papers <http://bit.ly/kathleenvohs>
Anneliese Maier Award (2014-2019)
Land O' Lakes Chair in Marketing
Distinguished McKnight University Professor
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