How goal progress influences regulatory focus in goal pursuit

Abstract

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.

Room for Opportunity: Resource Scarcity Increases Attractiveness of Range Marketing Offers

“…In addition, the current research suggests that promotion orientation can be activated independently to increase the attractiveness of range marketing offers. Companies utilizing range offers could consider doing that by inducing elated or dejected emotion (Roese, Hur, and Pennington 1999), highlighting a consumer's uniqueness (Lee, Aaker, and Gardner 2000), or leading people to represent their goals abstractly (Bullard and Manchanda 2017).…”

Using Consumer Psychology By Building Effective Communication

“…Although people take decisions, their preferences regarding the considered attributes change, that means they behave elastically: in the absence of situational pressure, they rely on basic levels, but in the decision-making process they transform into support for the chosen options, which elasticity contributes to confident decision-making when there are several, including in the service industry (Simon & Spiller, 2016;Yang et al, 2018). Bullard and Manchanda (2017) provided new empirical evidence of customer behavior at various stages to achieve the organization's goal. Their research shows that consumers in the early (late) stages of achieving a goal, as a rule, adopt a promotion-oriented (sustainability) way of thinking, using the initial state (desired final state) to measure progress in achieving the service goal.…”

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“…The current research used self-guide definitions of regulatory focus -that is, promotion as hopes and ideals and prevention as duties and oughts (e.g., Summerville & Roese, 2008), which is the most common way to manipulate regulatory focus. There are other ways to vary regulatory focus (for a review, see Molden, Lee, & Higgins, 2007), and more are being discovered (e.g., Bullard & Manchanda, 2017;Lount, Pettit, & Doyle, 2017). A concern about using hopes and duties to test hypotheses of the need-support model could be that common definitions of hopes and duties confound these constructs with high versus low need support, at least support of the need for autonomy.…”