Locomoting toward well-being or getting entangled in a material world: Regulatory modes and affective well-being Mauro Giacomantonio ⇑,1 , Lucia Mannetti 1 , Antonio Pierro Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, University of Rome ‘‘Sapienza’’, Italy article info Article history: Available online 24 July 2012 JEL classification: D60 PsycINFO classification: 2360 Keywords: Affective well-being Regulatory modes Materialism Negative motives for money abstract Two studies were conducted to examine the impact of two basic self-regulatory orienta- tions—locomotion and assessment (Higgins, Kruglanski, & Pierro, 2003)—on materialistic values. We hypothesized that, because assessment is associated with great concern over self-evaluation—particularly as it applies to social comparison and extrinsic motivation— it should promote materialistic concerns which in turn should decrease affective well- being. In contrast, owing to high levels of task involvement and intrinsic motivation, loco- motion is expected to be negatively associated with materialism and well-being. In Study 1, we found that individuals in an assessment mode as opposed to a locomotion mode were more likely to rate materialistic choices as more normative. In Study 2, we found that materialism and negative motives for earning money mediate the relationship between regulatory orientations and well-being. Implications and avenues for future research are discussed. Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Imagine a psychologically and physically active person, intrinsically motivated and concerned with being always occu- pied, with avoiding excessive downtimes, with being continuously involved in new projects and changes. This person will very likely be characterized by high self-regulatory locomotion orientation—that is, a strong concern for action and move- ment (Higgins et al., 2003; Kruglanski et al., 2000). From a somewhat different perspective, imagine instead a reflexive person, always immersed in what could have been, in judging and comparing one’s self, peers and colleagues in an attempt to reveal errors and imperfections. This description closely resembles that of a person characterized by a highly self-regulatory assessment orientation—that is, a strong concern for comparison and evaluation (Higgins et al., 2003; Kruglanski et al., 2000). In the present work, we argue that assessors—because of their strong tendency to evaluate situations and to engage in social comparisons—will be more likely to endorse a materialistic orientation (Richins & Dawson, 1992; Sirgy, 1998) and will be more likely to be negatively motivated to acquire money (negative motives; Srivastava, Locke, & Bartol, 2001). In contrast, locomotors—because of their strong commitment to action accompanied by a low tendency toward social comparison—will be less likely to embrace materialistic concerns. Furthermore, we claim that the opposite association of the two regulatory modes with a materialistic orientation is responsible for different levels of experienced affective well-being. Before describing the studies we will introduce regulatory mode theory (Kruglanski et al., 2000) and the concepts of materialism and negative motives for money, in order to provide the proper background prior to presenting our hypotheses. 0167-4870/$ - see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2012.07.003 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, Via Dei Marsi 78, 00185 Rome, Italy. E-mail address: mauro.giacomantonio@uniroma1.it (M. Giacomantonio). 1 These authors contributed equally to the paper. Journal of Economic Psychology 38 (2013) 80–89 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Economic Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/joep