Conflicted by Faith, Drawn to Pleasure: How Religious Self‐Discrepancy Shapes Product Choices

This research examines how the reversed form of religious self‐discrepancy influences consumer preferences for non‐religious and hedonic products. Specifically, it investigates how discrepancies between outward religious practices and secular aspirations shape product choices through perceived control, and how these effects vary by intrinsic religiosity and private versus public consumption settings. Six experiments ( N = 959 participants) were conducted to test the proposed relationships across varied manipulations, product categories, and consumption settings. Results show that the reversed religious discrepancy increases preference for non‐religious products (Study 1: Δ M = 0.92, d = 0.45) and for hedonic products (Study 2A: Δ M = 1.19, d = 0.57). Reversed religious discrepancy also reduces perceived control, which has a significant mediation effect on hedonic preference. This mediated effect is stronger among individuals with low intrinsic religiosity, whereas private consumption contexts moderate the relationship between reversed religious discrepancy and hedonic preference. By redefining the actual‐ideal mapping from sacred to secular ideals, this research extends self‐discrepancy and compensatory consumption theories and offers practical guidance on a new tool for market segmentation.