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Abstract
Two studies examined the impact of subliminal self-activation on affect regulation among action- versus state-oriented individuals. Action orientation is a regulatory mode characterized by decisiveness and initiative, whereas state orientation is a regulatory mode characterized by indecisiveness and hesitation. According to the model of intuitive affect regulation (Koole & Kuhl, in press), action-oriented individuals have stronger associations between the implicit self and affect regulation systems than state-oriented individuals. This prediction was tested in an affective priming task (Fazio, Sanbonmatsu, Powell, & Kardes, Citation1986). As expected, subliminal self primes triggered down-regulation of negative affect among action-oriented participants. By contrast, subliminal self primes triggered persistence of negative affect among state-oriented participants. Supraliminal self primes had no parallel effects. The implicit self may thus play a key role in affect regulation and volitional action control.
Notes
1. In Studies 1 and 2, we found no effects of gender. Consequently, this factor was dropped from the analyses.
2. Kuhl (Citation1994) introduced the labels “failure-related” and “decision-related” action orientation to what we refer to as “threat-related” and “demand-related” action orientation, respectively. The new labels map directly on to relevant constructs within PSI theory (e.g., Kuhl, Citation2000).
3. Equivalent results were obtained when AOD scores were used as continuous variables in regression analyses that paralleled the ANOVAs reported in the main body of this article. Because a regression approach made it impossible to inspect the absolute means in Studies 2 and 3, we report the ANOVA results in the main body of this article.