Self-control failure increases a strategic preference for submission as means to avoid future failure

Abstract A plethora of theories on human motives proposes that people have a fundamental need for control and an intrinsic desire to avoid submission to others. The current paper investigated an important exception to this general claim. Five experiments show that self-control failure leads people to strategically prioritize more social submission. In Experiments 1 to 3, salience of self-control failure increased the preference for submission. The submission effect was replicated with two manipulations and four measures of submission. Additionally, Experiment 3 showed that the effect only occurs after self-control failure and not after failure in controlling others. Finally, in Experiments 4 and 5, the submission effect influenced concrete preferences related to actual self-control failures from participants' personal lives. When confronted with a high likelihood of self-control failure (versus moderate likelihood), participants preferred more an intervention program offering external control rather than an intervention program offering guidance (Experiment 4) or pre-commitment (Experiment 5). Together, these findings show a highly replicable effect whereby strategical considerations prompt people to invite domination and seek submission to others.