Constructing and Using Social Networks: a Regulatory Focus Perspective

This article examines the psychological underpinnings of social networks by drawing on regulatory focus theory—an overarching distinction between two basic motivational systems that underlie people's self-regulations, motivated cognitions, and strategic preferences. We propose that regulatory focus influences people's (a) networking strategies and consequent structures, (b) abilities to exploit different network advantages, and (c) perceptual network schemas. We also propose that organizations can influence members' network structures by cultivating cultures that induce different regulatory foci. Word count: 75 3 Scholars have increasingly pointed out that the structural influence in network analysis The structuralist approach, however, is not alone in de-emphasizing the possible effect of individual psychology on social structures. There has been relatively limited work in social psychology on how different psychological states affect the structures of the social world in which people live and work. Thus far, only a handful of studies have examined both psychological variables and network measures, focusing mainly on three research questions: a) whether individuals of certain personality traits tend to gravitate toward Saltz, & Mayer, 2004), b) whether the effect of network structure is moderated by personality, and c) whether the same social structure is perceived differently by individuals with different personality traits (Casciaro, 1998; Casciaro, Carley, & Krackhardt, 1999). Although findings from these studies have provided valuable evidence on the interplay between individual psychology and social networks, little research has gone beyond the analysis of personality traits. This paper is an attempt to bring in a new psychological perspective—individuals' general motivational systems. We argue that people's self-regulatory orientations, motivated cognitions, and strategic preferences are critical psychological forces that can drive the formation primary motivational systems—the promotion system and the prevention system. These two motivational systems differ in terms of not only their primary motivational concerns (e.g.,