Misremembrance of options past: Source monitoring and choice

This study reveals that when remembering past decisions, people engage in c hoice-supportive memory distortion. When asked to make memory attributions of options' features, participants made source-monitoring errors that suppo rted their decisions. They tended to attribute, both correctly and incorrec tly: more positive features to the option they had selected than to its com petitor. In addition, they sometimes attributed, both correctly and incorre ctly more negative features to the nonselected option. This pattern of dist ortion may be beneficial to people's general well-being, reducing regret fo r options not taken At the same time, it is problematic for memory accuracy , for accountability and for learning from past experience.