Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T04:21:16.231Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The costs of giving up: Action versus inaction asymmetries in regret

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 December 2013

Antoinette Nicolle  and
Kevin Riggs
Antoinette Nicolle
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, United Kingdom. [email protected]@hull.ac.uk
Kevin Riggs
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Hull, Hull HU6 7RX, United Kingdom. [email protected]@hull.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Kurzban et al.'s opportunity cost model of mental effort relies heavily on counterfactual thinking. We suggest that a closer inspection of the role of counterfactual emotions, and particularly of action/inaction asymmetries in anticipated regret, may be important in understanding the role of opportunity costs in decisions to persist with a current task.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 36 , Issue 6 , December 2013 , pp. 702
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baron, J. & Ritov, I. (1994) Reference points and omission bias. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 59:475–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bell, D. E. (1982) Regret in decision making under uncertainty. Operations Research 30(5):961–81.Google Scholar
Coricelli, G., Critchley, H. D., Joffily, M., O'Doherty, J. P., Sirigu, A. & Dolan, R. J. (2005) Regret and its avoidance: A neuroimaging study of choice behavior. Nature Neuroscience 8(9):1255–62.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1982) The simulation heuristic. In: Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases, ed. Kahneman, D., Slovic, P. & Tversky, A., pp. 201–208. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Loomes, G. & Sugden, R. (1982) Regret theory: An alternative theory of rational choice under uncertainty. The Economic Journal 92(368):805–24.Google Scholar
Mellers, B., Schwartz, A. & Ritov, I. (1999) Emotion-based choice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 128:332–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nicolle, A., Bach, D. R., Frith, C. & Dolan, R. J. (2011a) Amygdala involvement in self-blame regret. Social Neuroscience 6(2):178–89.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nicolle, A., Fleming, S. M., Bach, D. R., Driver, J. & Dolan, R. J. (2011b) A regret-induced status quo bias. Journal of Neuroscience 31(9):3320.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Savage, L. J. (1951) The theory of statistical decision. Journal of the American Statistical Association 46(253):55–67.Google Scholar