Seeing Conflict: Identifying Self-Control Conflict Attenuates Early Allocation of Visual Attention to Positive Stimuli

Positive information such as temptations or stimuli related to reward attracts attention. This attentional bias is often considered to be habit-like and, consequently, to contribute to self-control problems. In contrast, we document across three studies how attention allocation to positive stimuli is attenuated when observers identify a conflict between positive information and a more important current goal. In study 1, students attended away from leisure-related temptations in the presence of studying reminders, however, they paid more attention to such positive, tempting stimuli when conflict was less salient such as when planning to engage in more leisure activities. Study 2 and 3 manipulated experimentally whether a conflict is identified and tested the effects of conflict identification on attention allocation. In study 2, students attended away from a positive temptation when they were prompted to consider it as detrimental to their studying goals but not when they reflected on how it might support their studying goals. This supports our assumption that activating a more important goal by itself does not cause attenuation of attention but the identification of a conflict with a goal. In study 3, reward-related information was attended to, but attention was attenuated when participants were instructed that the stimuli would temporarily harm and thus be in conflict with a more important goal. This effect was visible even without allowing participants to forget about the association with reward. In sum, malleable perceptions of conflict between positive information and important goals shape how observers orient to such information.