Here's the 'best' way to fail at New Year's resolutions
By some estimates, up to 80% of us abandon New Year’s Resolutions - and now science has revealed the best excuse to tell yourself if you do fail.
Researchers found it’s best to blame external factors rather than something that makes an individual personally culpable - for example, it's easier on the ego to pin the fault on saying a gym membership was too expensive rather than, say, running out of time. The researchers found that using the "right" excuse means that people still believe they have good self-control - even if they bailed on a pledge to begin going to the gym after the first week.
Dr Janina Steinmetz, Reader in Marketing at Bayes Business School, who conducted the research, said: "Many resolutions or commitments involve either time or money so the lack of one or the other seems to provide a good excuse for breaking it without adversely affecting how others see us. However, these two excuses are not equally effective. My six experiments involving around 1,200 people found that pleading a lack of money leads to better outcomes — in terms of perceptions about the individual — than citing lack of time."
How did the experiment work?
In one experiment, 200 online participants read about people who failed to keep a commitment to eat healthier food.
Some of those they read about blamed the cost of cooking good meals while others said they were defeated by a lack of time. Participants saw the first group as having better self-control and were more likely to consider them as potentially good gym partners.
Why does this sort of excuse work best?
The differences (between excuses based on time and ones based on money) appear to reflect how much the excuse is seen as being within the person's control, Dr Steinmetz suggests.
She said: "These results are surprising because people like to use lack of time as an excuse when they can't do something. They equate lack of time with high status. However, the studies suggest we tend to think others could find the time to exercise or cook healthy meals if they were sufficiently motivated. That is why citing factors many of us have less control over, such as lack of money, can produce perceptions of having better self-control even when we abandon our New Year's resolution or break a commitment."
How could this research help people?
The researchers say that the results could be useful for local authorities, NHS organisations and others campaigning on public health issues — and health professionals working with obese people.
Dr Steinmetz explained: "People often justify a diet heavy in fast food or TV dinners by saying it is quicker than buying and cooking healthy ingredients. Organisations promoting or marketing healthy lifestyles or working with patients around behaviour change can challenge that self-aggrandising claim that people are 'just too busy' to choose the healthy option. They can promote healthy but easy-to-prepare meals using affordable ingredients, or the benefits of even half an hour's aerobic activity. That would undermine the credibility of an all-too-familiar excuse."
