Regret Aversion and Decision Process Quality: Effect of Regret Salience on Decision Process Carefulness

Author

Jochen REB, Singapore Management UniversityFollow

Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

submittedVersion

Publication Date

3-2008

Abstract

A considerable amount of past research has examined the effects of regret aversion on which options decision makers choose. However, past research has largely neglected to address the effect of regret aversion on the decision process. We conducted five experiments to examine the effect of making regret salient on decision process quality. We predicted that increased regret aversion would lead to more careful decision processing. The results consistently supported this prediction across the different decision situations, incentive structures, regret salience manipulations, and dependent variables used. In all experiments making regret salient led decision makers to take significantly longer to reach a decision. In Studies 2a, 2b, and 4 it also led participants to collect significantly more information before making a choice. Implications and future directions are discussed.

Keywords

Anticipatory regret, Decision process, Decision process quality, Regret aversion, Regret salience

Discipline

Organizational Behavior and Theory

Research Areas

Organisational Behaviour and Human Resources

Publication

Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes

Volume

105

Issue

2

First Page

169

Last Page

182

ISSN

0749-5978

Identifier

10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.08.006

Publisher

Elsevier

Citation

REB, Jochen. Regret Aversion and Decision Process Quality: Effect of Regret Salience on Decision Process Carefulness. (2008). Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. 105, (2), 169-182.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/lkcsb_research/1002

Copyright Owner and License

Author

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2007.08.006