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Impact of Actor’s Initial State of Engagement in a Course of Action on Judgements of Post-decisional Regret and Joy: Revisiting Kahneman and Tversky (1982)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 November 2023

Mahya Sepehrinia Open the ORCID record for Mahya Sepehrinia [Opens in a new window] ,
Pegah Nejat Open the ORCID record for Pegah Nejat [Opens in a new window]  and
Reyhaneh Baniyaghoub Open the ORCID record for Reyhaneh Baniyaghoub [Opens in a new window]
Mahya Sepehrinia
Affiliation:
Shahid Beheshti University (Iran)
Pegah Nejat*
Affiliation:
Shahid Beheshti University (Iran)
Reyhaneh Baniyaghoub
Affiliation:
Shahid Beheshti University (Iran)
*
Corresponding author: Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Pegah Nejat. Shahid Beheshti University. Faculty of Education and Psychology. 1983969411 Velenjak, Tehran (Iran). E-mail: p_nejat@sbu.ac.ir.
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Abstract

According to the phenomenon commonly known as action effect and vastly replicated across the judgment and decision-making literature, more regret is associated with decisions resulting from action than inaction. Action vs. inaction, however, might either refer to change vs. no change or doing something vs. not doing something. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of this variation in operationalization of action-inaction on the strength of action effect, for both positive and negative outcomes, across four different domains of employment, finance, education, and health. This was an experimental scenario-based study (N = 215) with four between-subjects conditions varying in outcome valence and the actor’s initial state as either engaged or non-engaged in a particular course of action. Action effect was found to be stronger with respect to the initially engaged than the initially non-engaged decision-maker (ηp2 = .04), indicating that action as change results in a stronger action effect than action as doing something. The effect of the initial state was also moderated by domain. In addition, we both replicated and went beyond prior empirical literature regarding the effect of outcome valence and domain on action effect, with our findings being mostly consistent across joy and regret. Findings are discussed in light of the norm theory and its key concept of normality and contribute to the literature on moderators of action effect.

Keywords

action effectcounterfactual thinkingemotionstatus quo bias
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 26 , 2023 , e27
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Colegio Oficial de Psicologos de Madrid and Universidad Complutense de Madrid

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