I won’t be tempted: The relationship between forecasting errors and trait self-control

People who have high trait self-control report encountering temptations and resisting impulses less often than people with low trait self-control. I predicted that one reason people with good self-control avoid tempting situations is because they are less likely to underestimate how tempting a stimulus will be. Contrary to predictions, trait self- control was unrelated to how tempting people think a chocolate chip cookie will be when it was not present and how tempting they think the cookie was when it was in front of them. However, people with high dieting self-efficacy (vs. low dieting self- efficacy) were more likely to rate the cookie as more tempting in reality than they predicted it would be. The overestimation of temptation also differed between self- identified dieters and non-dieters. People typically overestimated how tempting the cookie would be, but dieters overestimated how tempted they would be less than non- dieters. People who had high dieting self-efficacy also overestimated how tempted they would be less than people who had low dieting self-efficacy. The overestimation of temptation in response to a cookie was not significantly related to trait self-control, but it may be related to dieting and dieting self-efficacy.