I like you more when your behaviors fit my motivational orientation: The effect of interpersonal regulatory fit on interpersonal evaluation

• We extended regulatory fit theory to the interpersonal level.
• Eager strategies were more favorably evaluated than vigilant strategies.
• Interpersonal regulatory fit enhances interpersonal evaluation beyond similarity.
• Evaluators' “feeling right” mediates the effect of interpersonal regulatory fit.
• The fit effect was eliminated once the evaluators knew the source of feeling right.

The present study is one of the few to investigate regulatory fit as an interpersonal phenomenon. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of the fit between evaluators' regulatory foci and the behavioral strategy of the person being evaluated during interpersonal evaluation. Study 1 found that after controlling for perceived similarity, interpersonal regulatory fit led to higher liking and competence evaluation ratings in general. Study 2 extended these findings under a formal interpersonal evaluation context—a graduate school admission interview—revealing that after controlling for perceived similarity, promotion-focused interviewers rated interviewees who demonstrated eager strategies as more likeable and competent, and more likely to be admitted, than did prevention-focused interviewers. These effects were mediated by interviewers' sense of feeling right. Study 3 further supported the mediator role of feeling right by revealing that fit effects were eliminated once evaluators were aware of the true source of feeling right. These findings suggest that interpersonal regulatory fit enhances interpersonal evaluation beyond similarity, and this effect is mediated by evaluators' feeling right.