RECONSIDERING THE RELATION BETWEEN REGRET AND RESPONSIBILITY

Recently Connolly, Ordonez, and Coughlan challenged the view that regr et is partly determined by perceived responsibility for the regretted outcome [Connolly, T, Ordonez, L. D., & Coughlan, It, (1997). Regret a nd responsibility in the evaluation of decision outcomes, Organization al Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 73-85]. In a series of e xperiments they manipulated whether actors arrived at an outcome throu gh their own decision or through a ''computer assignment'' over which they had no influence, This decision agency manipulation did not affec t their ''regret measurer Ne show in two experiments that this null-ef fect is due to the fact that regret was measured by means of a general happiness assessment, In the present research we replicated the basic design of their experiments and also found no effects of decision age ncy on the happiness assessment, However, the results showed the predi cted effects of decision agency when regret was directly measured, Mor eover, a measure of disappointment seemed to indicate the opposite eff ect: People are more disappointed when a negative outcome is caused by a computer assignment than when caused by their own choice, The role of regret and disappointment in decision making is discussed. (C) 1998 Academic Press.