Regret-action effect: Action-inaction asymmetries in inferences drawn from perceived regret

Abstract

Extending the literature on cognitive effects of action-inaction asymmetries regarding regret, we hypothesized asymmetries in inferences drawn from regret regarding action and inaction. We conducted four experiments with two undergraduate samples from Hong Kong and two American Amazon Mechanical Turk samples (overall N = 1186). We contrasted situations involving either regret or lack of and examined whether these were perceived to be a result of action or inaction. We found consistent evidence for a “regret-action effect”, that regret was perceived as more likely a result of taking action than of not acting, compared to no-regret. This regret-action effect held for action-inaction inferences drawn from target's regret both before and after the target learned of the outcome of the decision. Regret also affected perceived action-inaction norms, with the no-regret situation construed as having weaker action norms (compared to the regret and control conditions). All materials are available at https://osf.io/du9ws/.