Regulatory Focus Theory

Regulatory focus theory is a theory of goal pursuit formulated by the Columbia University psychology professor E. Tory Higgins, concerning people's motivations and perceptions during judgment and decision-making. It examines the relationship between a person's motivation and how they go about pursuing their goal, and it proposes two separate and independent self-regulatory orientations, prevention and promotion, that a person can adopt toward a given goal. The theory has been applied in communication research, particularly in the subfields of nonverbal communication and persuasion, and a person's chronic regulatory focus is measured with the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire or the Regulatory Strength measure, while a momentary regulatory focus can be primed or induced experimentally.