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The asymmetric effect of regulatory fit on moral judgments of other‐oriented lies
Author(s) -
Wu Song,
Yuan Tinglanxue,
Jin Shenghua
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
international journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1464-066X
pISSN - 0020-7594
DOI - 10.1002/ijop.12561
Subject(s) - regulatory focus theory , psychology , promotion (chess) , feeling , focus (optics) , social psychology , mechanism (biology) , task (project management) , moral disengagement , epistemology , political science , management , philosophy , physics , optics , politics , creativity , law , economics
We examined whether regulatory fit effects are asymmetric—namely, whether they occur only among individuals with a promotion focus or a prevention focus. We adopted a task where individuals make moral judgments of other‐oriented lies and conducted three studies. The results indicated that prevention‐focused individuals judged other‐oriented lies based on a vigilant strategy as more moral than lies based on an eager strategy (Studies 1 and 2). Meanwhile for promotion‐focused individuals, there were no differences between eager and vigilant strategies on moral judgments of other‐oriented lies. Additionally, the results suggested that the feeling of rightness is an underlying mechanism of the regulatory fit effects of prevention focus (Study 3).