Forsaking Optimism

Carroll, Patrick J.; Sweeny, Kate; Shepperd, James A.

doi:10.1037/1089-2680.10.1.56

Cited by 122 publications

(147 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…promises) could be regretted due to loss of confidence closer to the event itself. Carroll et al (2006) come very close to making such a prediction. They suggest that actors facing selfrelevant feedback become increasingly less optimistic, bracing for 'the possibility that things may not turn out as hoped', and that such bracing 'protects people against the psychological impact of an undesired outcome' (p. 63).…”

Section: Regret After the Outcomementioning

confidence: 63%

“…Temporal construal theory (Trope & Liberman, 2003) predicts a similar psychological effect of approaching a moment of truth. It is accordingly well established that people often show a decline in optimism when they anticipate self-relevant feedback in the near future (for a recent review, see Carroll, Sweeny, & Shepperd, 2006). However, these findings have so far not been connected to the time course of pre-outcome regret experiences.…”

Section: Regret After the Outcomementioning

confidence: 94%

“…However, there is also a pervasive tendency for people to reduce their optimism when approaching a 'moment of truth' (Carroll et al, 2006). Such creeping pessimism can account for the regret profile of participants in Experiment 1.…”

Section: An Alternative Modelmentioning

confidence: 97%

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Pre‐outcome regret: Widespread and overlooked

Kirkebøen

Teigen

2011

Behavioral Decision Making

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Many real-life decisions (e.g. promises, plans and agreements) involve a time interval between when the decision is made and the main outcome is revealed. Nearly all regret studies focus on anticipated or experienced post-outcome regret. We argue that regret is also frequently experienced in the pre-outcome period, and that this 'pre-outcome regret' has other sources than regret experienced after the outcome is known. Regret experienced in the pre-outcome period has an important function post-outcome regret (usually) cannot have, namely to motivate the decision maker to reconsider the ongoing decision process and reverse the initial decision. Pre-outcome regret should for these reasons be distinguished from post-outcome regret, and studied separately. In two scenario studies, participants were asked to imagine their regret after agreeing to perform an inconvenient task. In both, more regret was reported before than after the event, even when they had imagined a 'worst case' outcome. In the third study, participants described a difficult choice from their own life. Again, regret was perceived as higher in the pre-outcome period than afterwards. In a fourth study, participants reported regret 'online' during an economic game (a version of the ultimatum game). They regretted their decisions more before than after they knew the outcome. We conclude that experienced pre-outcome regret is often stronger than post-outcome regret, and typically increases during the pre-outcome period. We suspect that the absence of JDM studies of pre-outcome regret is a legacy of the dominant gambling metaphor within decision research.

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Section: Regret After the Outcomementioning

confidence: 63%

Section: Regret After the Outcomementioning

confidence: 94%

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Pre‐outcome regret: Widespread and overlooked

Kirkebøen

Teigen

2011

Behavioral Decision Making

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“…Since people are generally more upset by unexpected negative events than expected ones (Feather, 1966), this type of strategy may increase subsequent well-being. Furthermore, although people are generally optimistic about uncertain outcomes, they tend to become pessimistic about the outcome as the event draws near (Carroll, Sweeney, & Sheppard, 2006;Taylor & Sheppard, 1998). For example, students who predicted their exam scores immediately after taking an exam were generally optimistic.…”

Section: Bracingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The pain was greater if it will happen again: The effect of anticipated continuation on retrospective discomfort.

Galak¹,

Meyvis²

2011

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

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Across 7 laboratory studies and 1 field study, we demonstrated that people remembered an unpleasant experience as more aversive when they expected this experience to return than when they had no such expectation. Our results indicate that this effect results from people's tendency to brace for unpleasant experiences. Specifically, when faced with the anticipated return of the experience, people prepare for the worst, leading them to remember the initial experience as more aversive. This bracing can be reduced either by limiting people's self-regulatory resources or by denying them the time to brace. These results indicate that people's tendency to remember aversive experiences as less unpleasant than they actually were (as demonstrated in prior research) does not necessarily imply that people are willing to re-engage in these experiences—because the anticipation of repeating the experience may counteract the initial memory bias.

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“…One possibility was that participants would be unbiased and realistic given the possibility for an accuracy bonus and that accuracy feedback was impending rather than distant (see Carroll et al, 2006). A second possibility was that, because of a negativity bias or bracing for bad news, participants would be inclined to check on pessimistic news by examining the undesired side (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001;Sweeny & Shepperd, 2010).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hoping for more: The influence of outcome desirability on information seeking and predictions about relative quantities

Scherer¹,

Windschitl²,

O’Rourke³

et al. 2012

Cognition

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People must often engage in sequential sampling in order to make predictions about the relative quantities of two options. We investigated how directional motives influence sampling selections and resulting predictions in such cases. We used a paradigm in which participants had limited time to sample items and make predictions about which side of the screen contained more of a critical item. Sampling selections were biased by monetary desirability manipulations, and participants exhibited a desirability bias for both dichotmous and continuous predictions. People must often engage in sequential sampling in order to make predictions about the relative quantities of two options. We investigated how directional motives influence sampling selections and resulting predictions in such cases. We used a paradigm in which participants had limited time to sample items and make predictions about which side of the screen contained more of a critical item. Sampling selections were biased by monetary desirability manipulations, and participants exhibited a desirability bias for both dichotmous and continuous predictions. .

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Forsaking Optimism

Cited by 122 publications

References 64 publications

Pre‐outcome regret: Widespread and overlooked

Pre‐outcome regret: Widespread and overlooked

The pain was greater if it will happen again: The effect of anticipated continuation on retrospective discomfort.

Hoping for more: The influence of outcome desirability on information seeking and predictions about relative quantities

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