Regulatory mode
Also known as: Locomotion vs assessment
Whether you're driven to get moving or to get it right.
What it means
Regulatory mode theory distinguishes two independent self-regulatory orientations involved in goal pursuit: locomotion, the concern with movement and making progress (just doing it), and assessment, the concern with critical evaluation and comparing options against standards (doing it right). Everyone has both, but people differ in their chronic emphasis, and situations can heighten one or the other. High locomotion predicts initiative, persistence, and decisiveness; high assessment predicts thorough comparison, accuracy concerns, and proneness to regret and indecision. The two relate to but are distinct from regulatory focus (promotion versus prevention), which concerns the desired end-state rather than the manner of pursuit. It matters because mode shapes how people search, decide, and act, and because 'regulatory fit' between mode and task feels right and boosts engagement.
Examples
Planning a project, a strong assessor keeps weighing alternatives while a strong locomotor pushes to start and adjust on the way.
Buying a laptop, a high assessor reads twenty reviews and comparison tables for weeks; a high locomotor orders the first decent model and sorts out the details later.
Choosing where to eat, one friend keeps scrolling menus to find the best option while the other has already stood up and started walking toward the nearest place.
First described in Higgins, Kruglanski & Pierro (2000s).