We introduce and test a theory of how the choices consumers make are influenced by skill-based habits of use - i.e., goal-activated automated behaviors that develop through the repeated consumption or use of a particular product. Such habits can explain how consumers become locked in to an...

In this paper, the authors present an information processing model of self-regulation. The model predicts that consumers with an active self-regulatory goal will tend to focus on the cost (rather than the pleasure) of consumption and, as a result, they are better able to control their behavior....