Which motivates an individual more: The to-date frame or the to-go frame? A regulatory focus perspective

Abstract

Koo and Fishbach (2008) examined the influence of relative focus on completed actions (to-date information) versus remaining actions (to-go information) on the motivation for goal-directed work and indicated that emphasizing to-go information increases motivation when the goal is important. I hypothesized that when the goal is important, emphasizing to-go information increases motivation to achieve a goal in promotion-focused individuals, whereas focusing on what has been accomplished (to-date information) increases motivation to achieve a goal in prevention-focused individuals. I then tested whether chronic regulatory focus (prevention focus vs. promotion focus) moderated the effect of emphasizing to-date versus to-go information on goal pursuit through three studies. In Studies 1 and 2, I examined students' motivation to study for an important exam while maintaining their actual progress constant at approximately 50%. These studies supported our hypothesis. In Study 3, I used behavioral indicators to test the hypothesis, and found that behavioral indicators also supported our hypothesis. The results of this research extend Koo and Fishbach's (2008) findings by demonstrating that focusing on to-go information fits promotion-focused individuals, but not prevention-focused individuals. The three studies further confirm the robustness of our findings.