Abstract
The current research suggests that taking self-regulatory mechanisms into account provides insights regarding individuals’ responses to threats in social interactions. In general, based on the notion that a prevention-focused orientation of self-regulation is associated with a need for security and a vigilant tendency to avoid losses and other types of negative events we advocate that a prevention-focused orientation, both as a disposition as well as a situationally induced state, lowers generalized trust, thus hindering cooperation within social interactions that entail threats. Specifically, we found that the more individuals’ habitual self-regulatory orientation is dominated by a prevention focus, the less likely they are to score high on a self-report measure of generalized trust (Study 1), and to express trust in a trust game paradigm as manifested in lower sums of transferred money (Studies 2 and 3). Similar findings were found when prevention focus was situationally manipulated (Study 4). Finally, one possible factor underlying the impact of prevention-focused self-regulation on generalized trust was demonstrated as individuals with a special sensitivity to negative information were significantly affected by a subtle prevention focus manipulation (versus control condition) in that they reacted with reduced trust in the trust game (Study 5). In sum, the current findings document the crucial relevance of self-regulatory orientations as conceptualized in regulatory focus theory regarding generalized trust and responses to threats within a social interaction. The theoretical and applied implications of the findings are discussed.
Highlights
Vigilant Prevention-Focused Self-Regulation and Generalized Trust Self-regulatory orientations influence many fundamental social cognitive as well as social interactive mechanisms and affect individuals’ thought processes, emotions, and behavioral tendencies in social interactions
Prevention-focused self-regulation leads to responding with less trust in a social interaction paradigm that involves a threat
Participants scoring relatively high on the sensitivity to negative information scale (i.e., 1 SD above mean) who were confronted with the prevention focus problem cue decided to transfer significantly less money to the ostensible other player as compared to the control condition (B = −2.38, t = −2.82, p < 0.01)
Summary
Vigilant Prevention-Focused Self-Regulation and Generalized Trust Self-regulatory orientations influence many fundamental social cognitive as well as social interactive mechanisms and affect individuals’ thought processes, emotions, and behavioral tendencies in social interactions (for an overview of the field of self-regulation research, see the volume edited by Vohs and Baumeister, 2011). The present contribution aims to explore the role of RFT with respect to a fundamental and important social interactive phenomenon: generalized trust. Situations where a decision is pending whether one is willing to trust others reflect a state of uncertainty in that one is exposed to the threat that trusting others may prove to be disadvantageous. In this regard, we propose that especially prevention-focused self-regulation is crucial regarding the willingness to trust others in social interactions that entail threats. The present research adds to and extends a growing body of research, which puts the spotlight on the self-regulatory character of psychological phenomena (cf. Carver, 2006)
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