2021 Volume 69 Issue 3 Pages 229-240
Self-regulation refers to the overall process of adjusting one's thoughts, feelings, and actions to achieve a goal. Self-distancing is a strategy for improving self-regulation, one that can be promoted by performing non-first-person self-talk. The present study examined whether regulatory focus could be a moderator of self-distancing's effects on improving self-regulation. After university students (N=72) were divided into groups for the experimental conditions, they were induced to have a promotion- or prevention-focused orientation and then asked to conduct a self-regulation task (squeezing a handgrip and holding it as long as possible) while conducting first-person or non-first-person self-talk. The results indicated that a difference between the effects of first-person self-talk and non-first-person self-talk was observed only in the promotion-focused condition. This result suggests that type of regulatory focus may be a moderator of effects of self-distancing.
