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One of the most interesting concepts in social psychology is the subconscious phenomenon of self-licensing, in which a person’s increased confidence in their positive image makes them more likely to engage in immoral or negative behaviors.[30] As scientists put it, “Past good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviors that are immoral, unethical, or otherwise problematic.”
For example, a person who drinks diet soda will discount the high caloric content of a pizza or cheeseburger. The diet soda gives them a moral license to gorge on fast food — after all, it’s diet soda, right?
You financially support pro-environment causes and then drive a huge gas-guzzling SUV to a store two minutes away. You gulp down a multivitamin and a few supplements — and then proceed to eat empty calories. You buy energy-efficient lights or appliances and then use them more carelessly than before, which in the end increases your energy use.
Let’s address some common goals you might fail to achieve because of self-licensing:
I have a friend who exercises every now and then. He spends an hour or so in the gym, and then, having obtained a moral license, drives to the store to buy a sugary post-workout yogurt drink or to a fast food restaurant to have a “post-workout” meal.
It’s a classic case of taking one step forward and two steps back. People vastly overestimate the amount of calories they burn when exercising, and what they consider a harmless tasty reward after a workout sets them back. In fact, a small study suggests that people believe they burn three to four times more calories during exercise and then end up eating two to three times more calories than they burned during the exercise.[31]
Calorie-wise, it would have been better not to exercise at all than to exercise and then more than recoup the burned calories with a post-workout cheat meal. However, in addition to its potential weight loss benefits, exercise is important for overall health. The solution is not to stop exercising, but to educate yourself about energy expenditure during exercise and become more conscious of your post-workout food choices.
Self-licensing will make you feel as if you’ve “earned” your calories. You exercised so hard, burned at least 1000 calories, so go on, grab a cheeseburger and some fries and feel good about how active and healthy a person you are. In reality, you may have burned 300 calories and even a single cheeseburger would more than offset what you’ve just burned.
If you want to lose weight, make sure that the caloric content of a post-workout meal is lower than your energy expenditure during the exercise. Considering that you need a deficit of 3500 calories to lose a pound of fat, you need to maintain a daily deficit of at least 500 calories to lose a pound a week. It’s tough to train your way to a slim body, and I’ll show you why with a little game.
How many calories does an average adult burn during one hour of brisk walking?
600, 400, or 200?
The correct answer is “about 200.” Eat a single banana as your “post-workout” meal and you’re down to about 100 calories burned. Eat it with some yogurt and you’ve just consumed more calories than you burned during exercise. Walk at a slower pace instead of walking briskly and a single banana will wipe out any caloric deficit.
How about one hour of jogging? It burns about 400 calories. One large slice of pizza is enough to cancel out the burned calories. And show me a person who eats just one slice of pizza when they’re hungry after exercise!
That’s why a moral license to reward yourself with a post-workout meal is so dangerous. Exercise alone rarely, if ever, is sufficient to lose weight. It’s essential to cut down your daily calorie intake and be aware that a moral license that you obtain from exercising can actually hinder your weight loss.
Wherever in the world you are, a local supermarket will most likely have at least one aisle with “healthy” food. Purchasing some “healthy” snacks gives you a license to indulge in your favorite, less than healthy foods, because “Hey, look at me! My shopping cart is filled to the brim with stuff labeled (by the manufacturer) as healthy.”
In the end, most of what people consider “healthy” food isn’t actually all that healthy or still needs to be consumed in moderation. Brown sugar is still sugar. Nuts are rich in minerals and vitamins, but when you add heaps of salt and artificial flavorings, they don’t differ much from junk food. Whole-grain graham crackers are still low in nutrients. Pure squeezed orange juice is still full of fructose and lacks the dietary fiber you can find in an orange.
Be skeptical when it comes to food labeled as healthy and stick to what humans have been eating forever, particularly vegetables and fruits. As a rule of thumb, listen to Michael Pollan, author of Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, and avoid food with more than five ingredients, ingredients you can’t pronounce, or anything your great grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.
Self-licensing makes it easy to overspend.
You buy energy-efficient lights and then don’t bother to turn them off — after all, they’re energy-efficient, right? Then the energy bill comes and you need to pay more than before installing the new lights.
You see a great deal in the store — buy a $100 block knife set for just $75 and you’ll get a free bowl set. Proud of how much money you’ve saved, you get back home and realize your old knives are perfectly sharp and you don’t need any kitchen bowls.
When you save money, self-licensing might tempt you to overspend on your next purchase — after all, you’ve saved a few bucks, so it won’t hurt to spend a little more. You’ll still be ahead, right? Just like in the example with weight loss, in the end you’ll probably more than make up for the money you saved originally by making additional unnecessary purchases.
I strongly suggest automating your finances as much as you can to reduce the dangers of overspending with a moral license.
Set up an automatic weekly or monthly bank transfer of a portion of your income to another bank account where you only hold your savings. If you receive an unexpected amount of money or save a considerable sum by avoiding an expense, immediately send it to this account as well.
The more difficult it is to take out your savings (but without the risk of losing principal — this is about building an emergency fund you can access relatively quickly if needed), the more effective this strategy will be. Out of sight, out of mind.
You can also set a low spending limit on your credit card. Obviously, you can always change these limits, but an additional step preventing you from carelessly spending money might be enough to stop you in your tracks.
If the ease of a paying with a credit card is what challenges your willpower the most, get rid of your credit cards. Replace them with debit cards that draw money directly out of your own bank account. That way, you won’t be able to easily go over your budget.
Last but not least, consider paying in cash. It’s harder to part with money if you physically hand it over to a cashier instead of swiping a piece of plastic. Paying with cash makes you more conscious of what lands in your shopping cart and whether you really need it. It’s more difficult to fall victim to self-licensing if you physically need to part ways with cold, hard cash.
If you’re about to do something you tell yourself you’ve earned the right to do just because you did something that you consider good, it’s probably bad for you. Compensating good behaviors with bad behaviors is not a sustainable strategy to reach your goals.
The most problematic situation leading to failure is following positive habits with negative rewards. Thinking in terms of entitlement — I deserve a reward because I performed this positive habit — is a sure-fire way to engage in self-licensing.
The positive activity in which you engage should be your reward in itself. If there’s no need for a reward afterwards, there’s no risk of overcompensation.
For example, when I eat a healthy salad, I don’t feel the need to eat junk food afterwards because I love the flavor of salad. I don’t eat a salad just so I can get permission to eat something unhealthy. The salad is a reward in itself.
Granted, this is only possible if you actually enjoy the positive habits in which you engage. If you go to the gym to do exercises you hate because you must exercise, there’s no wonder you feel the need to reward yourself after your workout. Find a different way to engage in physical activity that will be a reward in itself and you’ll avoid the negative effects of self-licensing.
As a final suggestion and a general rule of thumb, be vigilant whenever an act of self-improvement inflates your self-image. It’s easy to do stupid things when you feel you’re the smartest person in the world.
1. Self-licensing is a phenomenon in which a person who engaged in a good behavior is more likely to engage in a negative behavior, overcompensating for past good deeds with things that are bad for them.
2. In weight loss, pay close attention to what you eat after exercise. Ideally, consider physical activity a reward in itself so that you won’t have a tendency to think you’ve “earned” junk food. Most people vastly overestimate the amount of calories they burn during the workout. They end up eating more than they need, which makes exercise contribute to weight gain instead of weight loss.
3. When it comes to health, be skeptical about “healthy” foods. Just because the food is in the “healthy” aisle or comes with “healthy” labels, doesn’t mean it’s actually healthy for you. And even if it indeed is, be cautious not to overcompensate for your healthy choices by throwing a bag of chips (or two) into your shopping cart. As with exercise, engaging in a positive habit doesn’t mean you’ve earned the right to engage in a negative behavior.
4. In finance, be aware that whenever you make a good financial decision, you might be tempted to reward yourself with an unnecessary purchase. Be particularly cautious about discounts that make you feel you’re a smart shopper, when in fact you stock up on items you don’t need. To protect yourself against self-licensing, automate your finances — set up automatic monthly transfers to save at least a small portion of your income. Setting low spending limits on your credit card or paying with a debit card or cash instead might also prove helpful.
5. As a rule of thumb, remember that if you’re about to do something you believe you’ve earned the right to do, it’s probably bad for you. Whenever you compensate for good behaviors with negative habits, you’re taking one step forward and two steps back. Make sure that you actually enjoy your positive habits. Then just engaging in them will be a sufficient reward for you.
6. Lastly, question your decisions when you’ve recently inflated your self-image by making a good decision, such as eating a healthy salad (that can make you feel like you can now eat a chocolate bar), exercising (by rewarding yourself with more calories than you burned), or finding a good deal (so now you can reward yourself with that gizmo you wouldn’t otherwise buy).
