Rationality And Affects: Focus-Target Fit Effect And Construal Level In Decision-making

As the research in the area of motivation has increasingly evolved,Hedonic Principle is no longer sufficient for offering accurate and comprehensive explanations of decision-making strategies that different individuals adopted in various situations.Higgins has proposed Regulatory Focus Theory(1997)and Regulatory Fit Theory(2000)successively to open a new direction for unveiling the relationship between motivations and decision-making strategies.This article took the above theories as a starting point for investigating self-other decision-making difference on construal levels.In Study 1,I first put forward the conception of Focus-Target Fit Effect proposing that the construal levels of individuals in a focus-target fit state are comparatively higher than those in a focus-target non-fit state.In Study 2,I took affect state as a new factor,and further compared the combined influence of Focus-Target Fit Effect and affect state over individuals’ construal levels in decision-making for the selves versus for the others.In Study 3,the decision makers’ personal affect states were emphasized specifically in self-decisions.Three experiments were conducted to obtain four conclusions and inferences as follow:(1)There is a certain matching relation between a decision maker’s regulatory focus and his/her decision target,and which I’ve named as the “Focus-Target Fit Effect” reflected in one’s construal level in the decision-making processes.Specifically,individuals under focus-target fit status(i.e.,prevention focus—self decision-making,promotion focus—other decision-making)are more inclined to favor a comparatively lower construal level,while those who are under focus-target non-fit status(i.e.,prevention focus—other decision-making,promotion focus—self decision-making)are more likely to adopt a higher construal level for information processing.(2)When a decision maker is under the influence of both focus-target fit effect and affect,his/her construal level will be determined largely depending on the current affect state.That is to say,no matter one’s focus-target status is fit or non-fit,his/her construal level tends to become higher as he/she is experiencing positive affects,and the opposite happens whenever he/she is feeling negative.(3)The different kinds of approaches of affect state priming may very likely alter the outcomes of the effects of affect over one’s construal level in decision-making tasks.(4)Whether or not the approaches of affect state priming are directly associated with the decision-making task itself to some degree,affects the extent to which a certain affect state may influence one’s construal level.