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Action/inaction regret as a function of severity of loss
Author(s) -
AvniBabad Dinah
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.855
Subject(s) - regret , psychology , term (time) , action (physics) , preference , outcome (game theory) , social psychology , economics , physics , quantum mechanics , machine learning , computer science , mathematical economics , microeconomics
Two studies were conducted to examine whether people who experience severe losses tend to regret their failures to act more than people that experience less severe losses. Two time points were considered, after the event (short term), and a year later (long term). In Study 1, participants responded to scenarios depicting losses varying in degree of severity. As hypothesized, protagonists in the heavy loss cases were attributed with more regrets of omission (inaction) both in the short and in the long term. In the less severe loss scenarios, action regrets decreased significantly in the long term. In Study 2, one of the severe loss scenarios from Study 1 was presented with a less severe outcome. As expected, participants generated more inaction regrets in the severe loss version. Severity of loss influenced the preference for omission regrets in both studies for the short term and the long term. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.