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Strength and Safety in Numbers: Considering the Social Implications of Regulatory Focus
Author(s) -
Brazy Paige C.,
Shah James Y.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.2006.00423.x
Subject(s) - regulatory focus theory , situational ethics , psychology , social psychology , affect (linguistics) , interpersonal communication , promotion (chess) , focus (optics) , experiential learning , interpersonal relationship , physics , mathematics education , communication , politics , creativity , political science , law , optics
The present article examines how individual and situational differences in individuals' regulatory focus on nurturance and gain (promotion) and on security and safety (prevention) may have significant, and distinct, social and interpersonal implications. We first review recent research examining how significant others affect goal pursuit and how individual differences in regulatory focus may moderate the various behavioral, evaluative, and experiential manifestations of social identification. We then consider how regulatory focus moderates the way in which people “size up” their social world in terms of the efficiency in which they identify and appraise motivationally relevant aspects of their social environment. Finally, we explore how regulatory focus moderates people's deliberate and automatic reactions to the beliefs, expectations, behavior, and emotions of other individuals and social groups.