The impact of doubt on the experience of regret

Philippe P.F.M. van de Calseyde, Marcel Zeelenberg and Ellen R.K. Evers

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2018, vol. 149, issue C, 97-110

Abstract: Decisions often produce considerable levels of doubt and regret, yet little is known about how these experiences are related. In six sets of studies (and two pilot-studies; total N = 2268), we consistently find that doubts arising after a decision (i.e., when people start questioning whether they made the correct decision) intensify regret via increased feelings of blame for having made a poor choice. These results are consistent with decision justification theory (Connolly & Zeelenberg, 2002) and regret regulation theory (Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2007), yet inconsistent with subjective expected pleasure theory (SEP; Mellers, Schwartz, & Ritov, 1999). That is, SEP would have predicted less regret as those who already doubted their decision should be less surprised when learning that their decision indeed could have been better (as compared to those who were certain that they made the correct decision). We find mixed results for the effect of post-decisional doubt on the experience of relief and no support for a relationship between a person’s degree of doubt before a decision and the intensity of regret. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Keywords: Doubt; Regret; Decision justification theory; Subjective expected pleasure theory; Action effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0749597817300869
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jobhdp:v:149:y:2018:i:c:p:97-110

DOI: 10.1016/j.obhdp.2018.08.006

Access Statistics for this article

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes is currently edited by John M. Schaubroeck

More articles in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().