The language of regulatory focus: Words used in descriptions of different promotion- and prevention-focused experiences

In research exploring regulatory focus, promotion and prevention have often been operationalized as hopes and duties, respectively. More recently, research has begun to use exploration and self-control instead. The current research analyzed the differences in language used for promotion- and prevention-focused experiences, focusing on duties versus self-control, and hopes versus exploration. I examined the 81 categories of words that Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count provided, focusing on differences in word categories that are used at least 0.5% of the time. Consistent with expectations, descriptions of self-control included more words related to food, exercise, and emotions than descriptions of duties. As expected, descriptions of hopes included more words related to work and achievement than descriptions of exploration. Counter to predictions, exploration did not involve more words in the ingestion, leisure, or motion categories. Similarly, self-control did not involve more words related to sex or money. This research suggests that different operational definitions of regulatory focus could be appropriate to somewhat different domains of activity.