The role of regulatory focus and expectation on creative decision making

Abstract

According to regulatory focus theory, individuals generally regulate movements towards goals differently—using either a promotion- or a prevention-focused strategy. Recent research has found a close connection between regulatory focus and performance expectation. The current study explored their role on creative decision making. In an experimental setting, regulatory focus and expectation were manipulated and brief video clips of real football games were interrupted at a critical moment when the player with the ball faced a couple of possible actions. Experienced football players were asked to generate options to continue the game situations. The players’ creativity was measured by performance indices for fluency, flexibility, and originality. Results revealed a benefit for players with an induced situational promotion focus as well as negative expectations to their performances on the generation of creative solutions. The findings might have implications for different complex real-life situations in which creativity is attributed to a performance-determining role.

Introduction

Regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) addresses the relation between motivation and behavior. Two motivational systems are distinguished—termed promotion (an actual-ideal self-discrepancy) and prevention (an actual-ought self-discrepancy)—which serve different survival-relevant needs and relate to different desired end states. While a promotion focus is associated with seeking advancement and accomplishment, a prevention focus is associated with concerns of safety and responsibility (Higgins, 1997, Higgins, 1998, Higgins, 2002). Individuals with a promotion focus strategy are likely to engage in approach behaviors and individuals with a prevention focus strategy are likely to engage in avoidance behavior and prefer vigilant goal pursuit. One important further difference is that individuals with a prevention focus are most inspired by negative role models who highlight strategies of avoiding failure, whereas individuals with a promotion focus are most inspired by positive role models who highlight achievement strategies (Lockwood, Jordan, & Kunda, 2002).

There are many findings demonstrating a close connection between motivation and performance expectancy (e.g., Keller, 2004, Pintrich, 1999, Schultheiss, 2001). In terms of the regulatory focus theory, performance expectations are suggested to depend on the mode of self-regulation activated in a specific situation (Kashima, Fiedler, & Freytag, 2008). The Moderation of Expectancy Effects by Regulatory Focus model (MERF) by Keller (2004) claims an interactive relation between the type of expectation (positive vs. negative) and the dominating type of self-regulation (induced situational promotion or prevention focus)¹ in a given performance situation. The model proposes that individuals with a promotion focus are particularly sensitive to positive expectancies that do not exist under any stereotypical threat in contrast to negative expectancies that exist under stereotypical threat.

Moreover, individuals with a promotion focus in positive expectancy situations usually fear not being able to confirm to these positive expectancies. Likewise, individuals with a prevention focus in a negative expectancy situation normally fear to confirm these negative expectancies (Keller & Bless, 2004). All in all, this means that all else being equal, positive (and negative) expectations should have differential effects on performing/task fulfilment, depending on whether a situational induced promotion or prevention focus is activated.

According to this framework, expectations should have varying influence on performance depending on the regulatory focus (cf. Keller, 2004, Keller, 2007, Keller and Bless, 2008). As people with a prevention focus normally concentrate on avoiding failure and obtaining security, they assess negative expectations as threatening. The increased pressure usually causes a diminished test performance. In contrast, as people with a prevention focus do not sense positive expectations as threatening, negative expectations do not cause additional pressure. It is thus possible for these individuals to achieve better test results. However, in terms of the promotion focus a positive expectation is connected with the risk of missing potential gains. The resulting threat causes additional strain and lowers test performance. Negative expectations in combination with a promotion focus lead to better achievements as there is no threat that might interfere with performance (Smith, Wagaman, & Handley, 2009).

To sum up, the MERF model assumes that positive expectations cause lower performances in promotion focus and cause better performances in prevention focus. In contrast, negative experiences cause better performances in promotion focus and worse performances in prevention focus. The current study investigated the validity of these assumptions for creative decision making. A range of studies have demonstrated a relation between performance expectancies and the concept of creativity (e.g., Yu & Frenkel, 2013) as well as between regulatory focus and the generation of creative options in different tasks (e.g., Friedman and Förster, 2001, Herman and Reiter-Palmon, 2011). However, to our best knowledge, there is no study yet that has investigated the relationship between both factors and the outcomes on the creativity value in a divergent thinking task.

Divergent thinking is considered to be the main element of creative thinking. It is usually measured by performance indices for fluency, flexibility, and originality (Guilford, 1967, Guilford, 1970). Basically, complex situations in sports are considered as an appropriate field and an ecologically valid way to investigate cognitive factors (e.g., creativity) that affect people’s decision making (Johnson, 2006). Team sports activities, such as football, seem to be especially suited because creative decision making plays a crucial role for the athletes within the games. An established method for measuring participants’ creative decision making is the presentation of game situations in team sports and the request to the participants to find options to continue the play. In 2003, Johnson and Raab developed an option-generation task including different handball game situations. Brief video clips were interrupted at a critical moment, when the player with the ball faced a couple of possible actions (e.g., shooting, passing to the player on the left side etc.). Inspired by this test method, Memmert, Hüttermann, and Orliczek (2013) developed a similar task including football game situations. By determining the participants’ responses regarding the three determinants of creativity—flexibility, originality, and fluency—the authors were able to measure the participants’ creative decision making (operationalized by a total creativity value). Moreover, results revealed a higher degree of creativity for football players with an induced situational promotion focus than for those with an induced situational prevention focus in the football-specific divergent thinking task.

As previous research has shown that not only the motivational state, but also expectancies—especially in sports—can affect decision making (e.g., McKay, Lewthwaite, & Wulf, 2012), the present study was designed to explore in how far football players’ creative decision making can be affected by distinct induced motivational states (situational regulatory foci) and positively or negatively induced performance expectations. Following the design used by Keller, 2004, Keller, 2007, both expectations (positive, negative) and regulatory focus (situational promotion or prevention focus) were manipulated while football players performed the football task by Memmert et al. (2013). It was assumed that football players with an induced situational promotion focus would generate more creative solutions when they have negative performance expectations compared to the condition in which they have positive performance expectations. Moreover, players with an induced situational prevention focus were expected to generate more creative solutions when they have positive compared to negative performance expectations.