Regulatory Focus Questionnaire

The Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ), developed by Higgins and colleagues in 2001, measures two independent motivational orientations derived from regulatory focus theory: a promotion focus concerned with growth, ideals, gains, and eager pursuit of positive outcomes, and a prevention focus concerned with safety, duties, responsibilities, and vigilant avoidance of negative outcomes. Rather than asking directly about current motivation, the RFQ assesses respondents' subjective histories of success in promotion and prevention self-regulation, yielding two scores that can be high or low independently. Because promotion and prevention foci predict different strategic preferences -- eagerness versus vigilance -- emotional reactions, and responses to framing, the RFQ is widely used in research on motivation, persuasion, decision making, and organizational behavior to capture chronic self-regulatory style.