Effects Of Regulatory Fit Research Articles

The Role of Regulatory Focus in Preference Construction

The authors examine how consumers' regulatory focus affects their information search behavior and decision-making process. The results show that uninvolved research participants rely on their regulatory focus as a filter to process information selectively. Participants paid more attention to and based their product evaluation on product information that is relevant to their regulatory concerns, but only when they were not motivated to process information. This regulatory fit effect on evaluation seems to be driven by the perceptual salience of fit versus nonfit information and is more consistent with heuristic than with systematic processing of information.

Understanding Regulatory Fit

The authors focus on three critical areas of future research on regulatory fit. First, they focus on how regulatory orientation is sustained. The authors argue that there are two distinct approaches that bring about the “just-right feeling”: (1) a process-based approach that involves the interaction between regulatory orientation and decision-making processes and (2) an outcome-based approach that involves the interaction between regulatory orientation and the framed outcomes offered. Second, the authors discuss possible boundary conditions of regulatory fit effects, highlighting the apparent paradoxical role of involvement. They suggest that the antecedents that give rise to regulatory fit (e.g., lowered motivation) can differ from its consequences (e.g., increased motivation). Third, the authors discuss broader implications of regulatory fit, proposing three possible mechanisms by which regulatory fit can lead to improved physical health and discussing the degree to which the just-right feeling plays a role in goal-sustaining experiences related to subjective well-being (e.g., flow).

When two wrongs can make a right: Regulatory nonfit, bias, and correction of judgments

We propose that when people consider whether their judgments are accurate enough, feelings of wrongness from regulatory nonfit (inconsistency between regulatory state and strategic means) can suggest that the answer is no and enhance correction of judgments relative to feelings of rightness from regulatory fit. Results from two experiments supported that hypothesis. When we activated an accuracy motive, participants who experienced regulatory nonfit provided judgments more consistent with correction for bias when they experienced regulatory nonfit than when they experienced regulatory fit (Experiment 1). Drawing participants’ attention to an earlier event as a source of rightness feelings eliminated the effect of regulatory fit on apparent correction of judgments (Experiment 2), suggesting attribution of regulatory fit/nonfit feelings to the accuracy of those judgments.

Locomotion, assessment, and regulatory fit: Value transfer from “how” to “what”

Regulatory fit is experienced when people pursue a goal in a manner that sustains their regulatory orientation. Previous research on promotion and prevention orientations has found that regulatory fit increases people’s perception that a decision they made was “right,” which in turn transfers value to the decision outcome, including being willing to pay more for a product than those who chose the same product without regulatory fit ( Higgins, 2000; Higgins et al., in press). We predicted that the effect of regulatory fit on monetary value could be generalized to locomotion and assessment orientations. Participants were willing to pay over 40% more for the same book-light when it was chosen with a strategy that fit their regulatory orientation (assessment/“full evaluation”; locomotion/“progressive elimination”) than when it was chosen with a non-fit strategy.