Strategies for improving self-control among naïve, sophisticated, and time-consistent consumers

•Developed a tool for identifying time-inconsistent, naïve, and sophisticated people.•Used the classification tool to accurately predict self-control behavior.•Tested alternative ways to improve self-control for naïfs and sophisticates.

Important prior research has established measurement scales (e.g., Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004) to determine individual differences in self-control and to predict behavior. However, these measurement scales do not account for the lack of awareness that many people have regarding their own self-control abilities. In the current research, the authors develop a new classification method based on O'Donoghue and Rabin's (1999a) theory of time-consistent, naïve, and sophisticated individuals, and they show that this method predicts future preferences and behavior. In addition, the authors test two alternative strategies for improving self-control: precommitment (Ariely & Wertenbroch, 2002) and outcome elaboration (Nenkov, Inman, & Hulland, 2008), and they demonstrate how these strategies differentially affect these three categories of consumers.