This research examines the influence of goal progress on the regulatory focus of goals. The results of five experiments demonstrate that in earlier stages of goal pursuit, individuals represent goals as promotion‐focused, while in later stages of goal pursuit, individuals represent goals as prevention‐focused. This effect is driven by the differential reliance on the initial versus the desired state as a reference point throughout goal pursuit. In earlier stages of goal pursuit, reliance on the initial state as a reference point produces a gain‐framed assessment of goal progress and leads to a promotion‐focused view of goals. In later stages of goal pursuit, reliance on the desired state as a reference point produces a loss‐framed assessment of goal progress and leads to a prevention‐focused view of goals. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Beliefs about stability and change are captured by individuals’ implicit theories. Incremental‐theorists believe that human traits and world‐dispositions are malleable and can change through effort, whereas entity‐theorists believe that human traits and world‐dispositions are fixed. In this research we find that the implicit theory an individual holds influences an important aspect of the cognitive process, namely, the level of construal at which information is processed. In three studies we demonstrate that, compared to entity‐theorists, incremental‐theorists adopt a more abstract level of information construal, and the increased cognitive flexibility afforded by an incremental‐theory mindset explains this effect.
This research examines the influence of regulatory focus on preference formation for sequentially presented choice alternatives. Across three experiments, we demonstrate the “holding-out” effect exhibited by prevention-focused individuals who tend to undervalue earlier options in a sequence, examine more options, and select an option encountered later in a sequence compared to promotion-focused individuals. We suggest and provide initial evidence that the mechanism underlying the holding-out effect is an inability to externally generate a comparison point in the beginning of a sequence, which negatively affects evaluations made by prevention-focused individuals.
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