The Impact of Regulatory Focus on the Inaction Inertia Effect

ABSTRACT Inaction inertia reduces the likelihood of consumers accepting an opportunity after previously missing a more favorable one. This study explores how consumers' regulatory focus influences the inaction inertia effect. The authors propose that because promotion‐ (vs. prevention‐) focused individuals tend to process information at a high construal level, they are more likely to decouple the previous and current opportunities due to distal psychological distance, reducing perceived regret, and inaction inertia. Promotion‐ (vs. prevention‐) focused individuals are more likely to experience higher processing fluency when encountering the current opportunity due to regulatory fit, which forms more positive overall feelings and reduces the inaction inertia effect. Results from one pilot study and three formal experiments show that people with a promotion (vs. prevention) focus are subject to lower inaction inertia. Moreover, perceived fluency and overall feelings play a more important and robust sequential mediating role than perceived coupling and regret. The current research findings address important gaps in the literature on inaction inertia and regulatory focus, providing valuable insights for practitioners in designing advertising and marketing strategies to mitigate the inaction inertia effect.