People sometimes choose to voluntarily limit their scope of action in order to better resist immediate temptations that conflict with long-term goals. For example, many people are willing to open a savings account with limited withdrawals in order to commit to increased savings. The use of such tools is often actively encouraged to improve people's personal finances or health, for example. However, there is a lack of research on whether the tools can also be overused, which can be expected to happen if a person underestimates their own willpower or overestimates the strength of the temptation. It may also be beneficial to expose oneself to temptations if successful resistance to them strengthens belief in one's own willpower and leads to an increased ability to resist other temptations in the future.

The project consists of two laboratory experiments. The first examines whether participants' willingness to pay to avoid a tempting situation accurately reflects the loss incurred when they are actually exposed to the temptation. The second experiment studies whether resisting temptation in an initial situation gives rise to stronger resilience at a later stage, for example by making the outcome in the initial situation a signal of one's own willpower. Both experiments will generate knowledge about the potential benefits of being exposed to temptation and have implications for the extent to which restrictions on people's choices are justified in society.