EMOTIONAL-REACTIONS TO THE OUTCOMES OF DECISIONS - THE ROLE OF COUNTERFACTUAL THOUGHT IN THE EXPERIENCE OF REGRET AND DISAPPOINTMENT

Regret and disappointment are emotions that can be experienced in resp onse to an unfavorable outcome of a decision. Previous research sugges ts that both emotions are related to the process of counterfactual thi nking. The present research extends this idea by combining it with ide as from regret and disappointment theory. The results show that regret is related to behavior-focused counterfactual thought in which the de cision-maker's own actions are changed, whereas disappointment is rela ted to situation-focused counterfactual thought in which aspects of th e situation are changed. In Study 1 participants (N = 130) were asked to recall an autobiographical episode of either a regretful or a disap pointing event, When asked to undo this event, regret participants pre dominantly changed their own actions, whereas disappointment participa nts predominantly changed aspects of the situation, In Study 2 all par ticipants (N = 50) read a scenario in which a person experiences a neg ative event. Participants who were instructed to undo the event by cha nging the person's actions reported more regret than disappointment, w hile participants who were instructed to undo the event by changing as pects of the situation reported more disappointment than regret. Study 3 (N = 140) replicated the findings from Study 2 with a different sce nario, and a design in which regret and disappointment were measured b etween rather than within subjects. In the discussion we address the r elation among counterfactual thinking, attributions and affective reac tions to decision outcomes, and the implications for decision research . (C) 1998 Academic Press.