What makes people's interest in doing an activity increase or decrease? Regulatory fit theory (E. T. Higgins, 2000) provides a new perspective on this classic issue by emphasizing the relation between people's activity orientation, such as thinking of an activity as fun, and the manner of activity engagement that the surrounding situation supports. These situational factors include whether a reward for good performance, expected (Study 1) or unexpected (Study 2), is experienced as enjoyable or as serious and whether the free-choice period that measures interest in the activity is experienced as enjoyable or as serious (Study 3). Studies 1-3 found that participants were more likely to do a fun activity again when these situational factors supported a manner of doing the activity that fit the fun orientation-a reward or free-choice period framed as enjoyable. This effect was not because interest in doing an activity again is simply greater in an enjoyable than a serious surrounding situation because it did not occur, and even reversed, when the activity orientation was important rather than fun, where now a serious manner of engagement provides the fit (Study 4a and 4b).

We hypothesized that perceiving oneself as choosing an object in a proper way, by strengthening engagement in the ongoing decision process, can intensify attraction to the chosen object. Participants in all four studies chose between a coffee mug and a nonexpensive pen. The analyses were restricted to those participants who made the same choice-overwhelmingly, the coffee mug. Participants' experience of using proper means to make their choice was manipulated by telling participants either to justify their decision (Studies I a & b) or to make their decision "in the right way" (Studies 2a & b). The other participants used the same means to make their choice (i.e., listing the positive and negative consequences of choosing the mug and of choosing the pen) but were given instructions to experience them as purely instrumental means. In all four studies, the perceived monetary value of the same chosen mug was substantially greater in the "proper way" condition than the "instrumental way" condition. Additional findings supported the proposed mechanism for this effect rather than alternative mechanisms: the effect was independent of participants' mood, as well as their perception of the effectiveness or efficiency of the decision process; it occurred only when the justification was part of the decision-making process itself; it was greater for participants with a stronger general belief in the importance of making decisions in a proper way; making decisions in a proper way increased the perceived value of the positive, nonchosen pen as well as the chosen mug; and the perceived value of the chosen mug depended on the number of its perceived positive attributes in the "instrumental" condition but not in the "proper way" condition.

The present studies were designed to delineate when procedural fairness would be more versus less likely to be inversely related to people’s self-evaluations in response to unfavorable outcomes. Prior theory and research have shown that: (1) the more that people assign psychological significance to unfavorable outcomes, the more likely are their self-evaluations to be adversely affected by such outcomes, and (2) people who are more prevention focused in their self-regulatory orientation assign greater psychological significance to unfavorable outcomes. Consequently, we predicted that in the face of unfavorable outcomes, the inverse relationship between procedural fairness and self-evaluations would be more likely to emerge among those who are more prevention focused. Using different conceptions or operationalizations of all of the independent and dependent variables, we found support for this prediction in three studies, spanning different cultures, contexts, and methodologies.

Back to Work, Back to the Gym Whatever your New Year's resolution may be, one sure thing investors must decide after New Year's is where to place their new cash. Although the week started out quietly, by Thursday investors were ready to put their "new year" money to work. Friday's employment numbers came in stronger than expected, where an increase in payrolls took out the bulls who where hoping for an early rate reduction rather than one later in the year. Eurodollar futures sold off 10 to 12 bps in the June and longer contracts right away, but ended up back by 5 to 5.5 bps at the end of Friday. Most, if not all, of the interest was in the 3-month and shorter maturity range at spreads between LIBOR less 5 bps to LIBOR flat on the offered side. We continue to see a very large amount of investment stay in the overnight market at spreads very tight to Fed Funds.

Research on persuasion has shown that inferences based on heuristic or peripheral cues can bias the subsequent processing of persuasive messages. Two studies (total N = 296) examined the additional possibilities that a message argument can serve as a biassing factor and cue-related information can serve as the target of processing bias. It was demonstrated that a message argument can bias (a) the processing of subsequent other message arguments (Study 1) and (b) the processing of subsequent cue information (Study 2). Results are discussed within dual-process models and the recently developed unimodel of persuasion. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Fairness theory (R. Folger & R. Cropanzano, 1998, 2001) postulates that, particularly in the face of unfavorable outcomes, employees judge an organizational authority to be more responsible for their outcomes when the authority exhibits lower procedural fairness. Three studies lent empirical support to this notion. Furthermore, 2 of the studies showed that attributions of responsibility to the authority mediated the relationship between the authority's procedural fairness and employees' reactions to unfavorable outcomes. The findings (a) provide support for a key assumption of fairness theory, (b) help to account for the pervasive interactive effect of procedural fairness and outcome favorability on employees' attitudes and behaviors, and (c) contribute to an emerging trend in justice research concerned with how people use procedural fairness information to make attributions of responsibility for their outcomes. Practical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research also are discussed.

This study describes a unimodel of persuasion offered as an alternative to the dual-process models (the elaboration likelihood model and the heuristic-systematic model) in which the term persuasion has been understood over the past two decades. The unimodel asserts that information previously referred to as (peripheral or heuristic) cues and that referred to as message or issue arguments are functionally equivalent in the persuasion process: Both serve as an evidence for conclusions that recipients may reach, and neither is necessarily privileged by recipients' (low or high) processing resources. The unimodel highlights several parameters of persuasion that have been relatively neglected in prior formulations. Attention to those parameters serves to integrate previous persuasion models and to offer suggestions for tailoring health communications about cancer-related issues.

Hurricane Rita Circles Like Shark Tuesday's FOMC meeting took the course that most of the market expected, with the Fed reinforcing its willingness to remain accommodative. The futures market sold off dramatically as further rate hikes were put back into play. LIBOR rates backed up the following day by anywhere from 3 to 5 basis points across the curve, except for the 1 month rate, which moved back only 1bp to a spread of 8bps over Fed Funds. Looking back to the last Fed meeting on August 9 th , the 1 month LIBOR rate reset just 7bps over Fed Funds, while the historical average has been 10 to 12 bps over Fed Funds. This tightness in spread is making it very difficult for both issuers and investors to agree on price. If there is not enough pick-up in the 1 month posting to bring investment out the curve, than the overnight to 1 week maturity area becomes the focus. (At least until either investors' average life to maturity becomes too short or issuers have too much maturing on a given day, at which point they may be forced to move out the curve). As a result, the big squeeze is back, probably until early October when the 1 month maturity goes beyond the next FOMC meeting on November 1 st.

Higgins' (2000) theory of regulatory fit proposes that motivational strength will be enhanced when the manner in which people work toward a goal sustains (rather than disrupts) their regulatory orientation. This enhanced motivational strength in turn should improve efforts at goal attainment. In Experiment 1, predominantly promotion- and prevention-focused participants were given the goal of writing a report on their leisure time, and were assigned either eagerness- or vigilance-framed means to use. Promotion/eagerness and prevention/vigilance participants were about 50% more likely to turn in their reports than promotion/vigilance and prevention/eagerness participants. In Experiment 2, participants read either a promotion- or a prevention-framed health message urging them to eat more fruits and vegetables, and were then asked to imagine either the benefits of compliance or the costs of non-compliance. Promotion/benefits and prevention/costs participants subsequently ate about 20% more fruits and vegetables over the following week than promotion/costs and prevention/benefits participants. The implications of regulatory fit's enhancement of motivational strength are discussed. Copyright (C) 2004 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.

The present paper explores the notion that an important difference between prior operational definitions of “cue” or “heuristic” information versus “message argument” information has to do with differential processing difficulty, and relative ordinal position of these two information types. In previous work, “cue/heuristic” information typically differed from “message argument” information not only in its contents, but also in it being (1) briefer, and (2) presented prior to the message information. We find that it is relative brevity and ordinal position rather than contents that ultimately explain the differences in persuasive impact between “cue/heuristic” versus “message argument” information. In so far as both “cues” and “message arguments” can vary in brevity and order with which they are presented, these findings are consistent with the view that these two information types do not necessarily differ in their persuasive impact.

We outline a uniform model of human judgement wherein individuals combine situational information with relevant background knowledge to form conclusions. Several judgemental parameters are identified whose specific intersections determine whether given situational information would affect judgements. Abstraction of features from surface manifestations and focus on underlying commonalities afford theoretical integration across judgemental domains and across processes previously assumed to qualitatively differ. The resulting “unimodel” is juxtaposed conceptually and empirically to popular dual‐mode frameworks, and implications are drawn for a general rethinking of human judgement phenomena.

People experience regulatory fit when they pursue a goal in a manner that sustains their regulatory orientation (E. T. Higgins, 2000). Five studies tested whether the value experienced from regulatory fit can transfer to a subsequent evaluation of an object. In Studies 1 and 2, participants gave the same coffee mug a higher price if they had chosen it with a strategy that fit their orientation (eager strategy/promotion; vigilant strategy/prevention) than a strategy that did not fit. Studies 3-5 investigated possible mechanisms underlying this effect. Value transfer was independent of positive mood, perceived effectiveness (instrumentality), and perceived efficiency (ease), and occurred for an object that w as independent of the fit process itself. The findings supported a value confusion account of transfer.

Three studies examine the role of situational constraint information on behavior identification. It was found that where the behavior-identification task is relatively easy assimilation of the behavior-identification to situational constraints is independent of cognitive load. However, where the behavior-identification task is relatively difficult, assimilation is undermined by load. Given that the discounting of situational constraint information, too, can be independent of load where the dispositional-inference task is easy, and is load-dependent when the task is difficult, it appears that both assimilation and discounting behave identically in regard to load. This conclusion is consistent with the judgmental unimodel whereby behavior identification and dispositional inference differ in the contents of the judgmental questions they address while sharing the underlying process whereby these questions are answered.

An integrated series of studies investigated 2 functional dimensions of self-regulation referred to as assessment and locomotion (E. T. Higgins and A. W. Kruglanski, 1995). Assessment constitutes the comparative aspect of self-regulation that critically evaluates alternative goals or means to decide which are best to pursue and appraises performance. Locomotion constitutes the aspect of self-regulation concerned with movement from state to state, including commitment of psychological resources to initiate and maintain such movement. Two separate scales were developed to measure individual differences in these tendencies. Psychometric work attested to the scales' unidimensionality, internal consistency, and temporal stability. The authors found that (a) locomotion and assessment are relatively independent of each other, (b) both are needed for self-regulatory success, and (c) each relates to distinct task orientations and motivational emphases.