The Role of Regulatory Focus in Preference Construction

The authors examine how consumers' regulatory focus affects their information search behavior and decision-making process. The results show that uninvolved research participants rely on their regulatory focus as a filter to process information selectively. Participants paid more attention to and based their product evaluation on product information that is relevant to their regulatory concerns, but only when they were not motivated to process information. This regulatory fit effect on evaluation seems to be driven by the perceptual salience of fit versus nonfit information and is more consistent with heuristic than with systematic processing of information.