Assessment of Individual Differences in Regulatory Focus among Cigarette Smokers

Smoking cessation programs might benefit from tailoring messages to individual differences in regulatory focus (see Higgins, American Psychologist, 52:1280–1300, 1997), but there is little evidence on the stability or convergent validity of regulatory focus measures. In two studies, smokers completed four measures of regulatory focus: (a) Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ); (b) actual–ideal and actual–ought self-discrepancies; (c) response duration in naming ideal or ought self-guides; and (d) reaction time for lexical decisions about one’s ideal or ought self-guides. Study 1 included a 1-month retest. Retest reliability was adequate, but convergent validity was poor. Questionnaire and self-discrepancy measures were unrelated to each other or to the reaction time measures. To facilitate future studies of tailored health behavior change interventions, research is needed to determine whether weak convergent validity resulted from (a) invalidity of some or all of the regulatory focus measures or (b) validity of each for measuring a different aspect of the construct.     

Measuring Outcome Expectancies for Specific Coping Behaviors: the Coping Expectancies Scale (CES)

Outcome expectancies for specific coping strategies may help explain why people vary in their choices of coping strategies (e.g., whether to smoke a cigarette or talk to a friend). These choices have relevance to both physical and mental health. The current study evaluated the psychometric properties of a new measure of mood regulation expectancies for specific explicit coping strategies, the Coping Expectancies Scale (CES). 552 adults completed the CES and other measures online. Factor analysis of the CES using Maximum Likelihood Extraction with promax rotation revealed three factors: Expectancies for Passive/Avoidant Coping, Expectancies for Active Behavioral Coping, and Expectancies for Active Cognitive Coping. Concurrent, discriminant, and predictive validity for these factors were strong, as was retest reliability. The CES enables researchers to measure expectancies for specific coping strategies, which may in turn help to explain people’s choices of strategies. In addition, the ability to measure these expectancies may allow for the development of treatment interventions that directly target them, ultimately enabling clients to adjust their expectancies and their choices of coping behavior, with implications for health and well-being.