Success Expectations and Performance: Regulatory Focus as a Moderator

Abstract

According to classic psychological theories of motivation, success expectations induce high motivation and thus lead to high performance. However, recent researchers have found that people sometimes select subjectively worse performance goals, thus lowering their expectations so as to avoid future mistakes and regret. Therefore, our research was directed to answer the when and how questions?when are the classic relationships (i.e., the positive correlations between expectations and performance) most likely to occur and what self-regulatory principles underlie their occurrence. Applying regulatory focus theory, we hypothesized that regulatory focus moderated the relations between expectations and performance and that motivation served as a mediator and partially explained the mechanism. These hypotheses were tested through two studies, both of which used the game Spot the Differences as experimental materials and recruited undergraduate students as participants. Study 1 measured the level of expectations and manipulated temporary regulatory focus with task framing techniques. Study 2 measured individual chronic regulatory focus with Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ) to further test the moderating effects. In addition, considering that Study 1 didn’t support the main effects of expectations as presented in classic motivational theories, Study 2 applied within-subject experimental design and manipulated expectations through the difficulty of tasks. Motivations were manipulated as the time participants spent on the tasks in both studies, and their mediating effects were tested according to the procedures proposed by Muller, Judd, Yzerbyt (2005). The findings showed that: ①Regulatory focus moderated the relationship between expectations and performance. For promotion focus individuals, success expectations correlated positively with performance, which was consistent with classic motivational theories; For prevention focus individuals, the correlation was not significant. ②Motivation mediated the interactions—high success expectations raised the motivational strength of promotion focus individuals, thus resulting in enhanced performance; while it made no significant motivational impacts on prevention focus individuals. The present research deepens our understanding of the relationship between expectations and performance by considering regulatory focus as both a situational factor and s chronic individual difference. Furthermore, it extends the moderating effect of regulatory focus from realistic outcomes to outcome expectations. It also suggests that positive beliefs about further (e.g., high success expectations) do not always lead to positive outcomes, which may depend on their relationships with individual properties and situational requirement.