Abstract
This study explored the effects of regulatory focus and emotions on information preferences, specifically information selection preferences (experiment 1) and implicit information preferences (experiment 2). Our findings revealed that, in the promotion-focused condition, individuals preferred hedonic information (vs. functional information) when they were happy (vs. sad). However, emotions’ effects on information preferences were attenuated in the prevention-focused condition. In experiment 3, we tested whether regulatory focus and salient emotions influenced information preferences. The results suggested that regulatory focus and salient emotions had no significant interactive effect on information selection preferences, but had a significant interactive effect on implicit preferences. These results further our understanding of the psychological dynamic mechanism involved in information preferences, which augments the affect-as-information theory.
Highlights
With the development of network technology in the information age, it has become important to identify what factors affect people’s information preferences
This research relied on the affect-as-information theory to examine the effects of regulatory focus and emotions on information preferences
The results obtained in experiment 1 indicated that promotion-focused participants were more likely to rely on emotions in selecting information in comparison to prevention-focused participants
Summary
With the development of network technology in the information age, it has become important to identify what factors affect people’s information preferences. Studies have shown that regulatory focus affects information searches, information sharing, and information utilization in the decisionmaking process (Higgins, 1999; Ciuchta et al, 2016; Ewe et al, 2018). Higgins (2006) found that emotions have a regulatory focus function, another key factor involved in the process of constructing individual values and attitudes. Schwarz and Bohner (1996) proposed the affect-as-information model, stating that emotions can provide information related to one’s current available tendencies and cognitions; people use emotional information to make “colored” judgments that influence their subsequent attitudes and behaviors. In a classic study by Schwarz and Clore (1983), weatherinduced emotions were used as a factor in assessing people’s life satisfaction, and the results indicated that people evaluated their satisfaction higher on sunny days than on rainy days
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