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Regulatory Focus Theory

For centuries, the hedonic principle that people approach pleasure and avoid pain has been the dominant motivational principle for many disciplines and across all areas of psychology. Even when Sigmund Freud discussed the need to go beyond the pleasure principle because people were controlled by the reality principle—environmental demands—he was simply modifying the pleasure principle such that avoiding pain became almost equal in importance to approaching pleasure. But is that the end of the story of motivation? How does the hedonic principle itself work? Might not there be different ways to approach pleasure and avoid pain that tell us something about motivation beyond the hedonic principle per se? Regulatory focus theory was developed in response to these questions.

Evolutionary Perspective

Regulatory focus theory starts with an evolutionary perspective on motivation. What are the survival motives? To survive, people (and other animals) need both nurturance and security, support or nourishment from the environment (often provided by others), and protection from dangers in the environment (social and nonsocial dangers). Regulatory focus theory proposes that two distinct regulatory systems have developed to deal with each of these distinct survival concerns. When people succeed in satisfying a concern they experience pleasure, and when they fail they experience pain. Thus, both of these regulatory systems involve approaching pleasure and avoiding pain. But this does not mean that the motivational principles underlying these systems are the same. Regulatory focus theory emphasizes the motivational significance of the differences in how actors approach pleasure and avoid pain when they regulate within these distinct systems.

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). Once again, people can succeed or fail to fulfill their promotion or prevention focus concerns. But the emotional and motivational consequences of success or failure in these two regulatory focus systems are not the same. When people are in the promotion focus system (either from a chronic predisposition to be in that system or from a current situation activating that system), they experience cheerfulness-related emotions following success (e.g., happy, joyful) and dejection-related emotions following failure (e.g., sad, discouraged). The pleasure of success and the pain of failure are not the same in the prevention focus system. People experience quiescence-related emotions following success (e.g., calm, relaxed) and agitationrelated emotions following failure (e.g., nervous, tense). Individuals in a promotion focus also appraise objects and events in general along a cheerfulnessdejection dimension more readily than along a quiescence-agitation dimension, whereas the opposite is true for individuals in a prevention focus.

Strategic Preferences

Success and failure in promotion versus prevention is also not the same motivationally. To understand why this is, a critical difference between promotion and prevention proposed by regulatory focus theory needs to be introduced. Regulatory focus theory proposes that when people pursue goals, their strategic preferences are different in a promotion versus a prevention focus. The theory proposes that individuals in a promotion focus prefer to use eager strategies to pursue goals—strategies of advancement (a gain), which move the actor from neutral (the status quo) to a positive state. In contrast, individuals in a prevention focus prefer to use vigilant strategies to pursue goals (a nonloss)—strategies of carefulness, which stop the actor from moving from neutral to a negative state. Why this difference in strategic preferences? Research has found that individuals in a promotion focus experience a world of gains and nongains because their concerns are about accomplishments and aspirations. Strategic eagerness is also about ensuring gains and not wanting to miss gains, so eagerness should fit a promotion focus. Individuals in a prevention focus, however, experience a world of nonlosses and losses because their concerns are about safety and meeting obligations. Strategic vigilance is also about trying to be careful and not wanting to commit mistakes that produce a loss, so vigilance should fit a prevention focus. Indeed, many studies have found that individuals in a promotion focus prefer to use eager strategies to pursue goals whereas individuals in a prevention focus prefer to use vigilant strategies.

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