Boundaries of Regulatory Fit: Is It the Thought That Counts?

Abstract

The feeling of regulatory fit is thought to arise from the right kind of goal pursuit, but some studies imply that it may be evoked even by lesser involvement in the right kind of strategies. The present experiment explored the minimum of involvement necessary to evoke regulatory fit. Participants (N = 71) first completed a regulatory focus manipulation task and were then led to believe that they would receive either rich or accurate information concerning vegetable sterols, evoking beliefs that they used eager or vigilant information search strategies. In reality, all participants received the same information. Participants in promotion focus reported more positive attitudes in the rich information condition, whereas prevention-focused participants reported more positive attitudes in the accurate information condition. The results showed that regulatory fit can be evoked through mere thought, without actual goal pursuit and even without engagement in the goal pursuit strategies.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was conducted as a part of a research project, “Consumer Perception of Food-Related Risks,” administered by VTT Research Institute and funded by the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. We are grateful to Professor Riitta Maijala and Research Scientist, MSc Satu Lievonen from the National Veterinary and Food Research Institute of Finland and to Research Manager, Dr. Eeva-Liisa Ryhänen from the MTT Agrifood Research Finland for their help in creating the risk materials. The preparation of the article was supported by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation and by the Graduate School of Psychology of Finland. We thank Jan-Erik Lönnqvist for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.

Notes

¹We acknowledge that the use of a two-sided message may weaken the effects of regulatory fit on persuasion (Cesario et al., 2004). This is because regulatory fit does not increase persuasion, or positivity of judgments, in an absolute sense, but increases confidence in own reactions (e.g., Avnet & Higgins, 2006). If these reactions are negative, regulatory fit results in more negative judgments and decreased persuasion. However, it seems that regulatory fit generally makes judgments more positive rather than negative (Higgins, 2000, 2005; Higgins et al., 2003). This has also been the case in persuasion studies in which initial reactions to the persuasive message have not been measured (Cesario et al., 2004; Lee & Aaker, 2004; Wang & Lee, 2006). Therefore, in our initial exploration of the mere-thought effect, we assumed that regulatory fit would have a positive effect on persuasion.