An Assessment of Chronic Regulatory Focus Measures

Abstract

Prior consumer research has demonstrated the ability of promotion and prevention regulatory orientations to moderate a variety of consumer and marketing phenomena, but has used several different scales to measure chronic regulatory focus. This paper assesses five different chronic regulatory focus measures using criteria of theoretical coverage, internal consistency, homogeneity, stability, and predictive ability. The results reveal a lack of convergence among the measures and variation in their performance along these criteria. Specific guidance for choosing a particular measure in regulatory focus research is provided.

Keywords: regulatory focus theory, RFQ, personality, trait regulatory focus, selves, personality assessment