How regulatory focus-mode fit impacts variety seeking
Variety-seeking occurs when consumers diversify their choices in one consumption or switch between different choices over time. For example, consumers may select different colours in a pack of highlighter pens or buy different flavours of fruit juices rather than multiple bottles of the same flavour. Empirical research on drivers of variety-seeking largely focused on the main effects of contextual factors and individual differences but have not yet examined the interaction effects of regulatory focus and mode.
Regulatory focus is a consumer motivation with two orientations: consumers motivated by promotion (concerned with gains and non-gains) versus prevention (concerned with losses and non-losses). On the other hand, regulatory mode is about the way consumers engage in an activity, which has two motivations: locomotion (concerned with taking action to effect change) versus assessment (concerned with critical evaluation to make the right choice). Extant research has approached regulatory focus and mode separately in terms of fit between one regulatory orientation and its preferred strategy to pursue a goal, but has not examined the interaction of regulatory focus and mode.
This study widens this perspective by investigating regulatory fit from a match between two orientations, thereby introducing a new type of fit: regulatory focus–mode fit. Specifically, it proposes promotion-locomotion fit and prevention-assessment fit. Within these pairs, each motivation leads customers to select options in a manner that sustains the preferred strategy associated with the matching motivation. Thus, this study demonstrates that fit between regulatory focus and mode drive engagement (sustained attention in activities) and attitude certainty (the extent to which one views their attitude as correct), which impacts variety-seeking.
Method and sample
Five studies were conducted. Study 1 obtained field data from 10,547 consumers of a music app, which operated as a public social media platform that allowed consumers to share songs from streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music and write text reviews. Text analysis were performed to operationalise consumers’ regulatory focus and mode from their online reviews.
Study 2 used established scale measures to explicitly test the effects of consumer differences in regulatory focus-mode fit on variety-seeking. The final sample consisted of 117 students over 18 years old at an Australian university recruited via Facebook ads.
Study 3 used an established regulatory focus advertisement to draw stronger causal inferences relative to Studies 1 and 2, which featured correlational data. Serial mediation through engagement and attitude certainty was further tested. 400 participants living in the UK were recruited via Clickworker.
Study 4 replicated the results of Studies 1-3, but with established manipulations for both regulatory focus and regulatory mode. It employed a 2 (regulatory focus: promotion vs. prevention) × 2 (regulatory mode: locomotion vs. assessment) between-subject design and recruited 455 participants living in the United States through Prolific.
Study 5 conceptually replicated Studies 1–4 with both regulatory focus and mode being primed using message-framing techniques thus, offering relevant insights for marketers. A 2 (regulatory focus: promotion vs. prevention) × 2 (regulatory mode: locomotion vs. assessment) between-subjects design was employed. The final sample of 284 participants were recruited from Amazon MTurk.
Key findings
Five studies consistently demonstrate the positive effects of regulatory focus-mode fit (vs. non-fit) on choice engagement and subsequently attitude certainty, which, in turn, reduces variety-seeking. Across different regulatory focus and mode operationalizations such as text analysis (Study 1), scale measures (Study 2), established primes (Studies 3 and 4), and message framing (Study 5), results remained robust. Therefore, this study widens the conceptualization of regulatory fit effects to incorporate a new type of fit between regulatory focus and mode.
Recommendations
This study demonstrates how consumer reviews can be useful to identify regulatory focus and mode in unobtrusive ways, as consumers’ regulatory orientations can be an important segmentation tool for marketers. Emergent online platforms with a limited variety of offerings may want to identify and target consumers who reveal regulatory focus–mode fit and hence seek less variety. In contrast, larger digital platforms such as Netflix and Spotify that can offer greater variety may target consumers who reveal regulatory focus–mode non-fit as they tend to diversify their choices.
Furthermore, this study presents implications for marketing communications. As engagement and attitude certainty explain regulatory focus–mode fit’s impact on variety-seeking, marketers should enhance attitude certainty by including facts and figures in their communications or leverage positive reviews from existing consumers.
Moreover, Study 5 shows that advertising messages can induce regulatory focus-mode fit to reduce variety-seeking. For instance, an advertising campaign can utilise ad copy promoting the benefits of drinking fruit juices and a TV commercial encouraging consumers to take action (i.e. purchase) to create an experience of promotion-locomotion fit
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More information
The research article is also available on eprints.