Abstract
Regulatory focus theory is a new motivation theory that surpasses the hedonic principle of approaching pleasure and avoiding pain to uncover how individuals approach positive goals and avoid negative goals. This study explores (1) how regulatory focus influences the ways in which individuals comprehend and process decision making and form different self-frames and (2) how regulatory focus and self-framing affect risky decision making. Results of Studies 1 and 2 suggest that chronic and situational regulatory focus exert similar effects on self-framing: promotion-focused individuals were more willing to use positive words to describe ambiguous decision-making information and created more positive self-frames compared with prevention-focused individuals. The effects of regulatory focus and self-framing on decision making were each significant. Additionally, self-framing was found to suppress the effect of regulatory focus on decision making. Implications and limitations of these findings are also discussed.
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Funding
This study was founded by the MOE (Ministry of Education in China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (No. 19YJC190020); and and the Social Sciences PlanningProject of Sichuan Province (No. SC18C003).
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American Psychological Association and Institutional Review Board guidelines were followed. The Ethics Committee of the authors’ University approved the study. Prior to testing, we obtained written consent from all participants.
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Jiaxi Peng declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Fei Cao declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Yan Zhang declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Yunfei Cao declares that he has no conflict of interest.
Yu Zhang declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Xia Zhu declares that she has no conflict of interest.
Danmin Miao declares that he has no conflict of interest.
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Appendix
Appendix
Self-framing task (Adopted from Wang 2004; Peng., et al., 2014).
Imagine that the government is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. Assume that the exact scientific estimates of the consequences of the programs are as follows:
On the basis of your interpretation of the pie display of the expected outcomes, complete the following sentences in your own words:
If option A is adopted, ______ people _______.
If option B is adopted, there is a one-third chance that_____ people_____ and a two-thirds chance that _____ people ______.
Given the previous information, which program would you choose? (Option A / Option B).
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Peng, J., Cao, F., Zhang, Y. et al. Reflections on motivation: How regulatory focus influences self-framing and risky decision making. Curr Psychol 40, 2927–2937 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00217-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-019-00217-w