Regulatory focus and social support: a dyadic perspective.

Abstract

I used a regulatory focus theoretical framework to investigate social support exchanges as they unfolded between romantic partners in ongoing relationships. Regulatory focus theory proposes two fundamental motivational orientations: a prevention focus (which is concerned with safety and security), and a promotion focus (which is concerned with hopes and aspirations). The theory lends itself to understanding how different motivations of support providers and recipients might shape the quality of support transactions in different support-relevant domains (i.e., provision and perceptions of support in response to problems/distress versus support in response to goal achievement). I tested a series of theoretically-derived predictions regarding regulatory focus, support provision, and perceptions of support from romantic partners. Although the results revealed that certain situational factors appear to elicit or to facilitate the expression of people's chronic regulatory orientations during support transactions with their partners, these chronic regulatory tendencies typically transcended or outweighed the situational context. Importantly, chronic regulatory focus had both actor and partner effects when predicting support provision and support perceptions. Thus, this work highlights the intrinsically interpersonal, dyadic nature of social support processes and the importance of studying perceptions and behaviors of both partners. The degree to which people provide effective support, or respond favorably to enacted support, appears to depend on both the motivational orientations and related skills of both support providers and partners, and on how both partners relate to and interact with one another. The implications for furthering our understanding of the social support and the regulatory focus literatures will be discussed.