The Influence Mechanism of Regulatory Focus on Self-Control

Ouyang Yi

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250318

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2025, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (3) : 698-706. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250318

Social, Personality & Organizational Psychology

The Influence Mechanism of Regulatory Focus on Self-Control

Ouyang Yi

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Abstract

Self-control is self-regulation under conditions of conflict and interference. The regulatory focus theory indicates that promotion and prevention focus are two relatively independent approaches in the process of pursuing goals. Studies have showed that promotion-focused individuals tend to exhibit better self-control than prevention-focused individuals. Some researchers equate self-control with inhibitory control. Based on this, it is assumed that more cognitive effort is needed to perform control tasks in the promotion focus than in the prevention focus. However, other studies have suggested that inhibitory control is one of the important components of self-control, and that better self-control does not necessarily require more cognitive effort.
In this study, two experimental tasks were used to investigate the influence of regulatory focus on conflict processing. Both experiments were designed with within-subjects. In Experiment 1, 77 college students (35 males), aged 18 - 28 years (M = 22.78, SD = 1.98), performed a cognitive processing response task in randomized prevention focus, promotion focus, and neutral conditions. The task requires participants to react to the color of the ring outside the color word (where the meaning and the color of the words are congruent). The color of the ring being congruent with the color of the word is the congruent stimulus, and the incongruent is the conflict stimulus. The results showed that compared to prevention focus, the accuracy rate of conflict stimulation under promotion focus was the same, but the response time was shorter; under prevention and promotion focus, the interference effect did not differ in both accuracy rate and reaction time.
In Experiment 2, 106 college students (42 males), aged 18 - 28 years (M = 22.85, SD = 1.87), performed a color-word Stroop dual task (which required the subjects to name the color or read the meaning of congruent or incongruent color-words according to task cues) under randomly arranged prevention and promotion focus conditions. The results showed that, compared to prevention focus, the reaction time to the conflict stimulus in promotion focus was shorter and the accuracy rate was higher; under the two conditions, the interference effect did not differ in accuracy rate and reaction time.
The above two studies found that, compared to prevention focus, although the responding speed was faster in Study 1 and the responding accuracy rate was higher in Study 2 when processing conflict information, the interfering effects of conflict were no different in either response accuracy rate or responding speed. These results suggest that inhibitory control is not the reason for the better self-control in promotion than in prevention focus. We propose that better cognitive monitoring of target information in promotion than in prevention focus may be an important reason for the improvement of self-control efficacy. The potential reasons are as follows: (1) promotion-focused individuals are more sensitive to target information than prevention-oriented individuals; (2) enhanced monitoring of target information does not need to consume control resources; and (3) enhanced monitoring of target information is conducive to reducing cognitive conflict and negative task execution experience.
This study has important implications for the development of effective control strategies. First, when performing tasks requiring self-control, the promotion strategy of "specifying what to do" will be more effective than the prevention strategy of "limiting what not to do". Second, when facing difficult tasks or suffering serious ego depletion, designing task situations with a promotion focus or utilizing incentives in promotion focus can still improve self-control to some extent.
This study has some limitations. First, we did not control the variable of trait regulatory focus when examining the influence of state regulatory focus on conflict processing. In addition, the proportion of male subjects is small, and there may be gender differences in trait regulatory focus, so the influence of trait regulatory focus on the experimental results cannot be excluded.

Key words

self-control / regulatory focus / conflict processing

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Ouyang Yi. The Influence Mechanism of Regulatory Focus on Self-Control[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2025, 48(3): 698-706 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250318

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