Handbook of Personality and Self-Regulation || Regulatory Focus in a Demanding World

✍ Scribed by Hoyle, Rick H.

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 546 KB
• Edition: 1
• Category: Article
• ISBN: 1405177128
• DOI: 10.1002/9781444318111.ch13

✦ Synopsis

Why is an understanding of self-regulatory processes so important for grasping the nature of personality? We suggest that personality is revealed through motivated preferences and biases in both individuals' "ways of seeing" the world and their "ways of coping" in the world-two different kinds of sensitivities that can define personality (Higgins & Scholer, 2008). These sensitivities are most likely to be revealed in particular types of situations-in low demand situations ("out of nothing") and in high demand situations ("when the going gets tough").

Expectancies, needs, beliefs, and knowledge structures derived from past experiences affect the perception of objects, events, and other individuals in the world (e.g., Bartlett, 1932;Bruner, 1957;Kelly, 1955). As envisioned in Kelly's personal constructs theory, individuals scan the perceptual field to "pick up blips of meaning" that relate to their chronically accessible constructs (Kelly, 1955, p. 145; see also Higgins, King, & Mavin, 1982). Low demand situations, in which input is minimal or ambiguous, provide opportunities to observe how individuals' perceptions, judgments, and evaluations are shaped by their "ways of seeing" sensitivities (e.g., their chronically accessible constructs). On the other hand, high demand situations, in which an individual's self-regulatory system is taxed or stressed, provide opportunities to observe how individuals' handling of problems and pressures is shaped by their "ways of coping" sensitivities (see also Caspi & Moffit, 1993;Cox & Ferguson, 1991;Wright & Mischel 1987). Thus we argue that it's not just that personality tells us about self-regulation, it's that understanding how people self-regulate is essential to understanding personality itself.