Regret and Responsibility: A Reply to Zeelenberg et al. (1998)

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Organizational Behavior
• Decision Making

Background:

• Previous research on decision agency and regret yielded conflicting results.
• Zeelenberg et al. (1998) reported findings on decision agency and regret that differed from Connolly et al. (1997).

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between decision agency, regret, and outcome evaluation.
• To test whether regret is solely dependent on decision-making responsibility.

Main Methods:

• Conducted two experiments to examine the effects of decision agency on regret.
• Analyzed the influence of gains/losses from the status quo versus decisional responsibility.

Main Results:

• Regret can manifest even without decision agency.
• Regret may be independent of outcome evaluations.
• Experiencing gains or losses significantly influences regret more than decisional responsibility.

Conclusions:

• Findings challenge the prevailing theories linking regret exclusively to decision agency.
• Regret is influenced by factors beyond direct decision-making responsibility, such as status quo changes.