Does a prevention focus evoke a persistent style when performing a creative task?

Abstract

Literature in the field of regulatory focus theory argues that individuals who are promotion-focused in creativity-related tasks are more successful than those who are prevention-focused. However, recent studies have shown that prevention-focused individuals are persistent when solving tasks, potentially leading to improved task performance. This study, which considered two kinds of regulatory focus (chronic/situational), investigated the hypothesis that prevention-focused individuals employ a persistent style when performing creative tasks. A Japanese version of the Remote Associates Test (RAT) was used as a creative task, and subjective depletion after the RAT, as well as the time spent deciding to skip RAT items, were measured as indicators of persistence. The results showed that both chronic and situational prevention focuses made participants more depleted than did the promotion focus. Furthermore, in the situational promotion-focus condition, chronic prevention focus made participants more depleted and lengthened the time taken to skip items. Thus, chronic prevention focus promoted persistence in a regulatory nonfit condition (i.e., situational promotion focus).