Regret: The Roles of Consistency-Fit and Counterfactual Salience

Seta, Catherine E.; Seta, John J.; G, McElroy; Hatz, Jessica

doi:10.1521/soco.2008.26.6.700

Cited by 17 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In short, the more that participants simultaneously felt that (a) an alternative behavior on the part of Mr. Jones was possible and that (b) such an alternative behavior would have led to a different and more desirable outcome, the more responsibility/blame they assigned to Mr. Jones and the more negative affect they expected him to experience. In addition to demonstrating how CP (the multiplicative product of IL and TL) can be measured and used to predict judgments, results of Study 1 also suggest that CP offers more predictive utility than the sheer frequency of counterfactual thoughts generated (a characteristic that to this point has been the only quantitative index used to predict counterfactual thought effects; see Roese, 1997; Seta, Seta, McElroy, & Hatz, 2008). Results also clarified that both CP for a single counterfactual as well as an average CP (in the case of multiple counterfactuals) can predict judgments.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counterfactual potency.

Petrocelli¹,

Percy²,

Sherman³

et al. 2011

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

132

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Counterfactual thoughts typically take the form of implied or explicit if-then statements. We propose that the multiplicative combination of "if likelihood" (the degree to which the antecedent condition of the counterfactual is perceived to be likely) and "then likelihood" (the perceived conditional likelihood of the outcome of the counterfactual, given the antecedent condition) determine the strength and impact of counterfactuals. This construct, termed counterfactual potency, is a reliable predictor of the degree of influence of counterfactual thinking upon judgments of regret, causation, and responsibility. Through 4 studies, we demonstrate the predictive power of this construct in a variety of contexts and show that it plays a causal role in determining the strength of the effects of counterfactual thought. Implications of counterfactual potency as a central factor of counterfactual influence are discussed.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counterfactual potency.

Petrocelli¹,

Percy²,

Sherman³

et al. 2011

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

132

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In an attempt to understand this emotional experience or state, researchers have investigated the causes and mitigations of regret (e.g., Chua, Gonzalez, Taylor, Welsh, & Liberzon, 2009;Kahneman & Tversky, 1982;Zeelenberg, van Dijk, Manstead, & van der Pligt, 1998). While focusing on different factors leading to regret, most regret theories (Decision Justification Theory; Connolly & Zeelenberg, 2002;Consistency Fit Theory;Seta, McElroy, & Seta, 2001;Seta, Seta, McElroy, & Hatz, 2008) agree on the antecedent -an outcome of an event is perceived negatively. Without the perception of a negative outcome, regret is unlikely to occur.…”

Section: Regret Theory and Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regrets, I’ve had a few

Schoemann

Gillath

Sesko

2012

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

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Despite extensive research on regret, relatively little is known about the underlying mechanisms of regret within close relationships. Attachment theory provides a theoretical framework to study regret within close relationships. Specifically, anxiously attached people tend to have negative views of themselves and their past acts, which is likely to result in a higher tendency to experience regret. Attachment security is likely to attenuate this tendency. Two studies provide support for these claims. Study 1 used a correlational design and showed that attachment anxiety is positively associated with the tendency to feel regret within close relationships but not with regrets in other domains. Study 2 used an experimental design and showed that reducing attachment anxiety via attachment security enhancement reduces the tendency to feel regret mainly for participants high in attachment anxiety.

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“…Psychological research has expanded the economic conception of regret by highlighting that the comparison can occur not only at the factual but also at the counterfactual level, by imagining the possible outcomes of the foregone options ( Kahneman and Miller, 1986 ; Kahneman, 1995 ; Roese, 1999 ; van Dijk and Zeelenberg, 2005 ). Moreover, such a research has also investigated structural features of the regrettable decisions (e.g., deciding of acting vs. not acting; time effect on action-based regret and inaction-based regret, see below), appraisals ( van Dijk and Zeelenberg, 2002 ), phenomenology (e.g., Zeelenberg et al, 1998a ; Marcatto and Ferrante, 2008 ; Summerville and Buchanan, 2014 ; Buchanan et al, 2016 ), behavioral consequences (of both anticipated and experienced regret; e.g., Mellers, 2000 ; Tsiros and Mittal, 2000 ; Zeelenberg et al, 2001 ; Marcatto et al, 2015 ; Davidai and Gilovich, 2018 ), and modes of regulation of regret (e.g., Inman, 2007 ; Zeelenberg and Pieters, 2007 ; Seta et al, 2008 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regret and Other Emotions Related to Decision-Making: Antecedents, Appraisals, and Phenomenological Aspects

et al. 2021

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Objectives: The mainstream position on regret in psychological literature is that its necessary conditions are agency and responsibility, that is, to choose freely but badly. Without free choice, other emotions, such as disappointment, are deemed to be elicited when the outcome is worse than expected. In two experiments, we tested the opposite hypothesis that being forced by external circumstances to choose an option inconsistent with one’s own intentions is an important source of regret and a core component of its phenomenology, regardless of the positivity/negativity of the post-decision outcome. Along with regret, four post-decision emotions – anger toward oneself, disappointment, anger toward circumstances, and satisfaction – were investigated to examine their analogies and differences to regret with regard to antecedents, appraisals, and phenomenological aspects.Methods: Through the scenario methodology, we manipulated three variables: choice (free/forced), outcome (positive/negative), and time (short/long time after decision-making). Moreover, we investigated whether responsibility, decision justifiability, and some phenomenological aspects (self-attribution, other attribution, and contentment) mediated the effect exerted by choice, singularly or in interaction with outcome and time, on the five emotions. Each study was conducted with 336 participants, aged 18–60.Results: The results of both studies were similar and supported our hypothesis. In particular, regret elicited by forced choice was always high, regardless of the valence of outcome, whereas free choice elicited regret was high only with a negative outcome. Moreover, regret was unaffected by responsibility and decision justifiability, whereas it was affected by the three phenomenological dimensions.Conclusion: Our results suggest that (1) the prevailing theory of regret is too binding, since it posits as necessary some requirements which are not; (2) the antecedents and phenomenology of regret are broader than it is generally believed; (3) decision-making produces a complex emotional constellation, where the different emotions, singularly and/or in combination, constitute the affective responses to the different aspects of decision-making.

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Regret: The Roles of Consistency-Fit and Counterfactual Salience

Cited by 17 publications

References 24 publications

Counterfactual potency.

Counterfactual potency.

Regrets, I’ve had a few

Regret and Other Emotions Related to Decision-Making: Antecedents, Appraisals, and Phenomenological Aspects

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