Do Action And Inaction Decisions Trigger Less Regret Than Assigned Agency? - Info and Reading Options

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When people receive a negative outcome such as a loss from their stock investment, or poor pedagogy of a course, one of the emotions they feel is regret. Regret is the emotion that accompanies the thoughts that one could have done something to receive a real or imaginary superior foregone outcome (Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2007). Researchers have conducted many studies to juxtapose the effect of personal responsibility choosing a course of action (personal agency) on regret from receiving a negative outcome with the regret experienced after being assigned the same choice that was made by someone else (assigned agency) and receiving the same outcome (Zeelenberg et al., 2000). Results of these studies suggested that personal agency is an antecedent of regret. Prior research suggests that when individuals report their perceptions of a protagonist’s regret for receiving a negative outcome, personal agency triggers more self-blame and more regret compared to the self-blame and regret experienced from receiving the same negative outcome from the same option that was chosen by someone else for the individual (referred to as assigned agency hereafter) (Zeelenberg et al., 2000). Researchers have also conducted many studies investigating the effect of action (making a choice to switch away to a course resulting in a negative outcome) versus inaction (declining to switch away from the same course resulting in a negative outcome) on regret (Kahneman & Tverskey, 1982). Results of these studies suggested that individuals’ tend to perceive a decision to be worse—and experience more regret—when the outcome results from action as opposed to inaction. Based on the results of the aforementioned studies, it is suggested that action decision is associated with choosing a course and is similar to personal agency (Zeelenberg et al., 1998b). Therefore, regret literature suggests that responsibility for choosing a course of action is associated with greater regret because an individual who is personally responsible for the choice that led to the negative outcome perceives the self as the cause of the outcome (self-blame or self-agency). In this study, we manipulate decision agency at three levels; action (i.e. switching a course), inaction (i.e. choosing not to switch and maintain the current course), and assigned agency (i.e. being assigned a choice made by someone else) to juxtapose its effect on regret. We also manipulate superior outcome of the foregone option (Known versus Unknown) to investigate their effect of decision agency on regret when explicit counterfactual information is available. We highlight the findings from the escalation of commitment literature, which documents that upon receiving an interim negative outcome, individuals responsible for choosing a course of action are likely to self-justify their decisions to reduce cognitive dissonance (Staw, 1976). We also point out that upon receiving an interim negative outcome, self-choosers perceive the received outcome as more positive as well as maintain a favorable belief about future outcome of the course of action. Then, in contrast to much of the previous literature on regret, we argue that action and inaction decisions involves choosing one of the available options for a justified reason, and each is different from assigned agency (Bobocel & Meyer, 1994). We also posit that action and inaction decisions should also prevent individuals from thinking about undoing their decision (that is, muting the decision), and suppressing self-referent upward counterfactual thinking concerning what they could have done to receive a superior outcome. Furthermore, we highlight self-serving bias literature (Campbell & Sedikides, 1999; Weiner, 1985) to suggest that when individuals self-report their emotions, they are more likely to attribute positive outcome to themselves and less likely to self-blame for causing a negative outcome. Therefore, self-agency may not be the prime antecedent of individual’s self-reported regret. Instead, we argue that self-justification should reduce regret whereas counterfactual thinking should amplify the emotion and explain higher portion of variance of regret. Thus, when individuals choose and self-justify their action or inaction decision and suppress counterfactual thinking, they should report less regret than regret triggered from assigned agency.

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