Are you what you "Like" on Facebook? Role of regulatory fit on liking of Facebook statuses

• Main Author: Nur Qamarina Ilham
• Other Authors: Joyce Pang Shu Min
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2015
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Psychology
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/62598
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Regulatory focus is a psychological variable which is used to describe the goal orientation of individuals. According to this theory, individuals are said to have either a predominant promotion or prevention regulatory focus. The current study hypothesized that Facebook statuses which match other Facebook users’ regulatory foci creates regulatory fit between the poster of the status and the viewer of the status, and this fit leads to greater implicit and explicit liking of the poster. Participants (N = 59), who were Facebook users, were randomly allocated to either a gain-frame or loss-frame condition. Each condition comprised of the Regulatory Focus Questionnaire (RFQ), a reaction time measure, a liking scale and Perceived Similarity measure. I examined whether regulatory fit, between the regulatory focus of participants and the Facebook statuses presented to them, would lead to greater liking for the statuses, as measured by a reaction time measure and a liking scale. It was also hypothesized that perceived similarity mediated the relationship between regulatory fit and liking. Results did not reveal any statistically significant relationship between regulatory fit and liking in both gain and loss-frame conditions. Similarly, perceived similarity was not a significant mediator of regulatory fit and liking (p > .05).