The Influences Of Temporal Comparison And Regulatory Focus On College Students' Self-evaluation

Temporal comparison refers to the process of self-evaluation by individuals at different time points,which is an important source of self-evaluation.And Regulatory focus is the motivation of self-evaluation,it will affect how individuals evaluate themselves by reference standards.In this paper,the motivation of self-evaluation and reference standards are combined to explore the relationship between temporal comparison,regulatory focus and self-evaluation.Including three studies,study1 discussed the relations between time comparison,adjustment focus and self-evaluation;Study2 researched into the effect of temporal comparison on self-evaluation;Study3 probed into the effects of temporal comparison and regulatory focus on self-evaluation.In study 1,787 college students finished Regulatory Focus Scale,Positive And Negative Affect Schedule and College Students' Self-Concept Questionnaire.They were also asked to report the information source of the test self-evaluation and the most important self-concept.The data was analyzed in independent sample t-test and correlation analysis.The results showed that(1)college students,in the process of self-evaluation,are more inclined to compare with the past themselves,followed by social comparison,future temporal comparison;The most important of college students' self-concept is family,followed by interpersonal relationships and honesty.(2)the effect of different temporal comparison on negative emotion,but there is no significant difference on other variances.(3)promotion-focus was positively correlated with self-evaluation and positive emotion,and negatively correlated with negative emotion;The prevention-focus is significantly positively correlated with self-evaluation,negatively correlated with negative emotion,and has no significantcorrelation with positive emotion.In study2,86 female college students participated in the experiment,they finished self description task,which was used to manipulate temporal comparison.And then they were adopted with Positive And Negative Affect Schedule and Interpersonal self-confidence scale(one part of Personal Evaluation Inventory).The data was analyzed in independent sample t-test.The results showed that Compared with the college students who compared with past self,the self-evaluation of college students who compared with future self is lower;Compared with the college students who compared with past self,the positive emotion of the college students comparing with past self is lower;There is no significant difference in the negative emotion.At the same time,the positive emotion level of the subjects was significantly higher than the negative emotion level.In study3,160 college students participated in the experiment.Firstly,they finished a maze task,which is used to induce regulatory orientation.Then they had to finished a self description task,finally filled in Positive And Negative Affect Schedule and Interpersonal self-confidence scale(one part of Personal Evaluation Inventory).The data was analyzed in variance analysis.The results showed that in the case of prevention-focus,the self-evaluation of the future temporal comparison is significantly higher than the self-evaluation of the past temporal comparison.In the the past temporal comparison,the self-evaluation of the promotion-focus is significantly higher than the self-evaluation of the prevention-focus.