A consumer psychologist observes someone make a choice between chocolate cake and fruit salad, a classic measure of self-control (Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999). Since the cake is relatively tastier but unhealthier (i.e., a vice; Wertenbroch, 1998), a choice of cake is interpreted as a lack of self-control, whereas a choice of fruit salad (a virtue) is viewed as successful self-control. The simplicity and intuitive appeal of this heuristic has led it to be widely adopted by consumer psychologists. However, a comprehensive understanding of the operation of self-control requires food consumption to be analyzed as a two-stage process: choice followed by intake quantity (Wansink & Chandon, 2014). Self-control processes may be relevant to both stages of a decision of what to eat (choice stage) and a decision of how much to eat the chosen option (quantity stage)—they may influence both choice and quantity. Examining the role of self-control in terms of post-choice quantity control is critical since over-consumption of calories is the single most significant contributor to obesity (Livingston & Zylke, 2012). The overconsumption problem is not an exclusive matter of vice foods. Eating virtuous foods can result in excessive calorie intake and thus consumers need to control the intake of virtues as well as vices.

• Anirban Mukhopadhyay(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong)
• Ga-Eun (Grace) Oh(Lingnan University, Hong Kong)