Would You Drink after a Stranger? The Influence of Self-Presentational Motives on Willingness to Take a Health Risk

Abstract

This experiment examined the influence of self-presentational motives on a potentially unhealthy behavior—drinking from a stranger’s water bottle. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, participants’ (N = 48) social image-concern (low/high) was manipulated, and half of the participants also received a verbal challenge to drink from the bottle (challenged/not challenged). Participants in the high image-concern condition drank significantly more water (M = 50.8 ml) from the stranger’s bottle than did participants in the low image-concern condition (M = 30.1 ml), p < .05. Also, participants who were challenged drank more (M = 53.7 ml) than those who were not challenged (M = 27.2 ml), p < .05. Discussion focuses on the utility of a self-presentational approach for understanding health risk behavior.