The effects of regulatory focus on teachers' classroom management strategies and emotional consequences

Abstract

The study investigated how regulatory focus affected teachers' selection of classroom management strategies and the emotional consequences they experienced when these strategies failed. Primary school teachers (n = 179) were randomly assigned to two framing conditions: promotion focus and prevention focus. As predicted, teachers with promotion focus adopted more approach strategies (e.g., praise) but less avoidance strategies (e.g., punish) than their counterparts with prevention focus. When the strategies failed, teachers with promotion focus experienced more dejection-related emotion (e.g., disappointment) than agitation-related emotion (e.g., anger) whereas teachers with prevention focus experienced more agitation-related emotion than dejection-related emotion. However, some results were inconsistent with the prediction. Compared to their counterparts with prevention focus, teachers with promotion focus experienced less negative emotion, either dejection-related or agitation-related. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.