Construct · 4 names · 5 citations
Different names. Different fields. One construct. One map.
● jangle · one contrast, many names Nearest construct by meaningfocuscompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to regulatory focus is focus.
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Regulatory focus theory holds that self-regulation runs through two independent systems rather than a single drive toward pleasure and away from pain. The promotion system is concerned with gains, growth, ideals, and advancement, and it favors eager strategies that try to secure hits and avoid missing them. The prevention system is concerned with safety, duties, oughts, and security, and it favors vigilant strategies that try to secure correct rejections and avoid mistakes. Higgins drew the distinction in his 1997 Beyond Pleasure and Pain and set out the full motivational principle in 1998. Either focus can be a chronic disposition or a momentary state brought on by how a task is framed. This is the referent the rest of the map is measured against, because every other meaning here borrows the promotion and prevention contrast from it.[1][2]
Regulatory fit is the experience that arises when the way a person pursues a goal suits their regulatory orientation, for example using eager means while in a promotion focus or vigilant means while in a prevention focus. Higgins argued in his 2000 Making a Good Decision that fit does not change what a person wants but intensifies their engagement in the pursuit, which raises the value they place on the chosen object or decision. The experience can make people feel right about what they are doing and can carry that felt rightness into unrelated judgments. Fit grew directly out of regulatory focus but is a separate construct, because it is a relation between an orientation and a strategy rather than the orientation itself. Two people in opposite foci can each reach fit, so a fit result is not by itself a promotion or a prevention result. Treating the two as one is the most common slip in this literature.[3]
In consumer research the promotion and prevention distinction is used to explain when a persuasive message will land. Aaker and Lee showed in their 2001 study I Seek Pleasures and We Avoid Pains that people process and accept information more readily when an appeal matches their active goal, so promotion-focused readers respond to messages about pleasures and gains while prevention-focused readers respond to messages about safety and the avoidance of pains. They tied the active focus to self-construal, with an independent self leaning toward promotion and an interdependent self leaning toward prevention. The practical claim is that a frame should be matched to the reader's orientation rather than assumed to work the same for everyone. This is regulatory focus and fit carried into marketing, measured by recall, attitude, and persuasion rather than by task performance. The construct is the same, and only the outcome and the setting change.[4]
The same two systems have been carried into the study of motivation, emotion, and performance at work. Brockner and Higgins argued in 2001 that a promotion focus and a prevention focus lead to different emotional experiences on the job, with promotion running along a cheerfulness to dejection axis and prevention along a quiescence to agitation axis. They linked focus to how employees respond to feedback, set goals, and react to organizational change. The construct is Higgins's promotion and prevention distinction applied to work roles and job design rather than to laboratory tasks. What differs is the setting and the criterion, which becomes job attitude, effort, and performance. The underlying motivational contrast is unchanged, which is why this belongs on the same map.[5]
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