The Study Of The Relationship Between Self-Expansion And Regulatory Focus In Close Relationships

Self-expansion theory mentions that self-expansion is a basic motivation, and the main approach people expand themselves is through close relationship. Disloyalty may happen when current relationship cannot provide sufficient self-expansion or one did not include the other into self. Regulatory focus theory proposes that people have developed two distinct regulatory systems during the survival and development process, promotion focus and prevention focus. When people pursue goals, their strategic preferences are different in a promotion versus a prevention focus. The judgment of success and failure in promotion versus prevention is not the same emotionally.Guo Jichun had point out in his graduation thesis that the level of self-expansion motivation is different between interdependent self and independent self. His research has provide a basis for our assume, in this paper we believe that the level of self-expansion motivation among different trait crowd are not the same, self-expansion may prompted by some other factors. After the review of self-expansion theory and regulatory focus theory, the article believes that the self-expansion motivation of individuals in a promotion focus is different from individuals in a prevention focus, and their desire for a romantic relationship with the hypothetical target is also different. So after the rapid self-expansion process in current relationship, the occurrence of infidelity will be affected by the self-expanding opportunities and regulatory focus types.In our article, we did one correlation research and one experiment research. In the correlation research, we examined the relationship between self-expansion and promotion focus, relationship between self-expansion and prevention focus, relationship between promotion focus and prevention focus by using self-expanding Questionnaire and Regulatory Focus Questionnaire.The experiment research is a2(self-expanding opportunities)×2(regulatory focus types) between subject design. The dependent variable is individuals’ desire for a romantic relationship and interest in self-expanding with the hypothetical target. The experiment research is a further study of the relationship between self-expansion and regulatory focus, and their affect to close relationship.Under the conditions of this study, this study got the following main conclusions:(1) Individuals in a promotion focus are more sensitive to self-expanding opportunities than individuals in a prevention focus.(2) The Significant correlation between self-expansion and promotion focus occurs in close relationship that has sufficient self-expansion.(3) Individuals whose long term regulatory focus system is prevention focus being adjusted by promotion focus exhibited moderate interest in hypothetical target who provided many opportunities(4) Individuals high in promotion focus were more likely to desire a relationship with a target who provided several (vs. few) opportunities to expand themselves.(5) Neither individuals in a promotion focus nor individuals in a prevention focus show great interest in hypothetical target who provided few opportunities.(6) individuals in two types of regulatory focus are uneven distribution, under the Chinese cultural background the number of individuals in a prevention focus may far more than individuals in a promotion focus.