The asymmetric impact of decision-making confidence on regret and relief

Abstract

When individuals make uncertain decisions, they often evaluate the correctness of their choices in what is referred to as decision-making confidence. The outcomes of such decision-making can lead to counterfactual thinking wherein alternative possible outcomes are contemplated. This, in turn, can elicit counterfactual emotions including upward and downward counterfactual thinking, which, respectively, refer to regret and relief. Decision-making confidence and counterfactual emotions have key effects on how individuals learn from the past and prepare for the future. However, there has been little understanding of how these experiences are related. For this study, 98 total adults were recruited with the goal of assessing the connections between decision-making confidence and sensations of regret and relief when completing a card-based gambling task. The results of this study suggest that decision-making confidence may reduce the intensity of relief while increasing the degree of regret experienced. These findings thus emphasize the important effect that decision confidence has on emotional processing.

Keywords: action effect; counterfactual thinking; decision-making confidence; regret; relief.

Figure 1

Experimental approach and scoring rules.

Figure 2

Emotional differences among different conditions. Two-way ANOVA results: 2 (choice: action & inaction) × 3 (outcome condition: negative, neutral, and positive) (The Raincloud plots are made up of three parts, namely density estimate plot, box plot, and dithering scatter plot).