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Updated: May 13, 2026
06:48
The HoneyComb Paradigm for Research on Collective Human Behavior
Published on: January 19, 2019
Do you play to win--or to not lose?
Heidi Grant Halvorson1, E Tory Higgins
1Motivation Science Center, Columbia University, USA.
Harvard Business Review
|March 5, 2013
Summary
Understanding your promotion or prevention focus can improve performance. This motivational focus influences goal achievement, attention, values, and emotional responses to success or failure.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Organizational Behavior
Background:
- Traditional personality assessments often fail to predict performance or guide improvement.
- Motivational focus, specifically promotion or prevention orientation, is a key attribute predicting performance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To explain the concepts of promotion and prevention focus.
- To detail how understanding motivational focus can enhance performance and sustain motivation.
Main Methods:
- Conceptual analysis of promotion and prevention focus.
- Application of motivational focus theory to goal setting, feedback, and incentives.
Main Results:
- Promotion-focused individuals are advancement-oriented, risk-tolerant, fast-paced, and creative.
- Prevention-focused individuals are responsibility-oriented, vigilant, risk-averse, thorough, and accurate.
- Motivational focus significantly impacts how individuals approach challenges, value outcomes, and perceive success or failure.
Conclusions:
- Knowing one's motivational focus allows for tailored strategies in goal setting, role model selection, feedback, and incentive provision.
- Creating "motivational fit" enhances and sustains both promotion-minded eagerness and prevention-minded vigilance for improved performance.
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