Regulatory Fit at Work: Gravitational Effects and Associations with Employee Well-being

Abstract

Using a task approach, this study examined the extent to which employee regulatory focus would “gravitate” employees towards promotion- versus prevention-oriented tasks within their jobs, and whether a subsequent regulatory fit/misfit would be associated with their well-being (i.e., mental health and job satisfaction). In a pre-study among 37 employees, we determined the regulatory focus of work tasks from the Netherlands Skill Survey, which are relevant to the general working population, resulting in a selection of 7 promotion and 11 prevention tasks. For our main study, we used the Dutch Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social Sciences (LISS) panel and collected data from 1,606 respondents. In 2011, we collected respondents’ regulatory focus and in 2012, we collected their work tasks and well-being. Promotion-oriented employees considered both promotion and prevention tasks to be highly relevant in their jobs, and this relevance was associated with their mental health. Prevention-oriented employees, however, did not respond to the relevance of promotion or prevention tasks and generally reported lower well-being, irrespective of the regulatory focus of their tasks. We tentatively conclude that promotion focus gravitates employees towards job with a richer task content, containing both promotion and prevention tasks.