Regulatory Focus Theory

The hedonic principle that people approach pleasure and avoid pain has been the dominant motivational principle for centuries. But is this principle enough? What if there are different ways to approach pleasure and avoid pain, and, if there are, might this tell us something about motivation that is as important as the hedonic principle itself? Regulatory focus theory proposes that there are, indeed, distinct systems for regulating pleasure and pain and these distinct systems create fundamentally different ways of experiencing and dealing with the world. Identity studies interacts with regulatory focus theory through the motivations that underlie selection of particular regulatory focus strategies of an individual or group. The process of identity development is shaped as different choices or different ways to proceed on a task result from differing systems for regulating pleasure and pain.

Regulatory focus theory begins with an evolutionary perspective on motivation. Like other animals, people need both nurturance and security to survive; they need support or nourishment from the environment and they need protection from dangers in the environment. The theory proposes that two distinct regulatory systems have developed to deal with each of these distinct survival concerns. Both systems involve approaching pleasure and avoiding pain, but the type of pleasure and the type of pain experienced in these two systems are different, as are the mechanisms and strategies that underlie the self-regulation. Regulatory focus theory emphasizes the motivational and emotional significance of the differences between these systems in how the hedonic principle unfolds.

Regulatory focus theory associates the nurturance motive with the development of promotion focus concerns with accomplishment, with fulfilling hopes and aspirations (ideals). It associates the security motive with the development of prevention focus concerns with safety, with meeting duties and obligations (oughts). People can succeed or fail to fulfill either their promotion concerns or their prevention focus concerns, but the consequences of success or failure in these two systems are not the same. When people have a promotion focus, they experience cheerfulness-related emotions following success (e.g., happy, joyful) and dejection-related emotions following failure (e.g., sad, discouraged). In contrast, when people have a prevention focus, they experience quiescence-related emotions following success (e.g., calm, relaxed) and agitation-related emotions following failure (e.g., nervous, tense). Individuals with a promotion focus also appraise objects and events along a cheerfulness-dejection dimension more readily than along a quiescence-agitation dimension, whereas the opposite is true for individuals with a prevention focus.

If we think of a current satisfactory state of self-regulation as being neutral or the status quo, signified by 0 (zero), then the promotion and [Page 630]prevention systems can be distinguished in terms of which kind of change from 0 is the predominant concern. The promotion focus system is concerned with creating change from 0 to +1, whereas the prevention focus system is concerned with stopping change from 0 to -1. The promotion system is more concerned with advancement and attainment (gains), whereas the prevention system is more concerned with security and maintenance (non-losses). These different concerns translate into different preferences for which strategies to use when pursuing goals. Individuals with a promotion focus prefer to use eager strategies to pursue goals—strategies of advancement (a gain) that move the actor to a more positive state. In contrast, individuals with a prevention focus prefer to use vigilant strategies to pursue goals (a nonloss)—strategies of carefulness that stop the actor from moving to a negative state.

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