The personality of familiar and significant people: the lay perceiver as a social-cognitive theorist.

When are perceivers guided more by implicit social-cognitive theories of personality and when more by trait theories? As perceivers become more familiar with a person they infer relatively more psychological mediating variables (e.g., construals, goals) that underlie the person's behavior and relatively fewer broad, uncontextualized traits such as aggressive or friendly (Study 1). The effects of familiarity are moderated by the importance of the target to perceivers (Study 2). Specifically, perceivers make relatively more inferences using mediating variables and fewer inferences with traits as the target becomes more familiar, if and only if the target plays an important role in their lives. The findings indicate that psychological mediating variables play a significant role in lay perceptions of people and specify conditions in which perceiver's function like implicit social-cognitive theorists, namely, when the perceived is familiar and important to the perceiver.

Approach and avoidance strength during goal attainment: regulatory focus and the "goal looms larger" effect.

Three studies tested the hypothesis that regulatory focus, both as a chronic person variable and as a manipulated situational variable, differentially affects the strength of participants' approach and avoidance strategic motivations as they get closer to the goal. In 2 studies, flexion and extension arm pressure were used as on-line measures of approach and avoidance intensity, respectively. As predicted, the approach gradient was steeper for participants with a promotion focus on aspirations and gains than for participants with a prevention focus on responsibilities and nonlosses, whereas the reverse was true for the avoidance gradient. In a third study, the same pattern of results was found on a persistence measure of motivational strength. Participants with a promotion focus worked longer on anagrams closer to the goal when they were approach means for goal attainment than when they were avoidance means, whereas the reverse was true for participants with a prevention focus.

Promotion and prevention focus on alternative hypotheses: implications for attributional functions.

Five studies examined hypothesis generation and discounting in causal attribution from the perspective of regulatory focus theory (E. T. Higgins, 1997, 1998). According to this theory, a promotion focus is associated with generating more and simultaneously endorsing multiple hypotheses, whereas a prevention focus is associated with generating only a few hypotheses and selecting 1 hypothesis from a given set. Five studies confirmed these predictions for both situationally induced and chronic individual differences in regulatory focus. In Studies 1, 2, and 3, individuals in a promotion focus generated more hypotheses than individuals in a prevention focus. In Studies 4 and 5, individuals in a promotion focus discounted explanations in light of alternatives less than individuals in a prevention focus. Study 5 also found that in a promotion focus, person explanations were generalized across situations less than in a prevention focus.

Promotion and prevention choices between stability and change.

Two situations involving choice between stability and change were examined: task substitution, which deals with choosing between resuming an interrupted activity and doing a substitute activity, and endowment, which deals with choosing between a possessed object and an alternative object. Regulatory focus theory (E. T. Higgins, 1997, 1998) predicts that a promotion focus will be associated with openness to change, whereas a prevention focus will be associated with a preference for stability. Five studies confirmed this prediction with both situational induction of and chronic personality differences in regulatory focus. In Studies 1 and 2, individuals in a prevention focus were more inclined than individuals in a promotion focus to resume an interrupted task rather than do a substitute task. In Studies 3-5, individuals in a prevention focus, but not individuals in a promotion focus, exhibited a reluctance to exchange currently possessed objects (i.e., endowment) or previously possessed objects.