In two dummy health food tests, participants, who were all daily smokers, were given a placebo. Some were told it was a vitamin tablet, and some knew it was just a placebo. The smokers then took an unrelated one hour survey where they were allowed to smoke. Those who thought they had taken a vitamin tablet smoked almost twice as much as the other group. The more positive the smokers were to the health giving properties of vitamins, the more they smoked. It may be that the perceived health giving properties leads to a false sense of invulnerability to the diseases associated with smoking.
Some other examples of people using this virtuous choice followed by a poor choice later is, the so-called 'licensing effect', are
- to binge drink at the weekend having not drunk all week.
- to do one 'green' thing and then feel we've done our bit so we can ignore the consequences of our next action.
Another side effect of this 'virtuous' behaviour can be selfishness later on. In a study people could choose to order from an eco-friendly site or elsewhere. They then played a game where they had to split an amount of money with others. Those who had ordered from the eco-friendly site shared less of their money.
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