Responding to negativity: How a risky tactic can serve a vigilant strategy

Regulatory focus theory distinguishes between two motivational systems—a promotion system concerned with nurturance and advancement and a prevention system concerned with security and safety [Higgins, E. T. (1997). Beyond pleasure and pain. American Psychologist, 52, 1280–1300]. In signal detection terms, a preference for eager strategies within the promotion system has been equated with a ‘‘risky’’ bias, whereas a preference for vigilant strategies within the prevention system has been equated with a ‘‘conservative’’ bias. However, we propose that when prevention-focused individuals face negative input, they should be willing to incur false alarms to ensure that negative stimuli are correctly identified. Across six studies, we found for negative stimuli a reversal of the traditional finding that prevention participants show a conservative bias in information processing. In these studies, prevention participants consistently exhibited a risky bias when the input was negative. We suggest that this new tactic—a risky bias in response to negativity—best serves the prevention strategy of vigilance. 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.