旁观者及其与个体的亲密程度对后悔情绪的影响

后悔情绪是反事实思维的产物,对个体决策行为的改善具有积极作用,能够激发个体反思既往选择,优化未来决策。该研究采用经典的连续冒险任务,从人际交互角度切入,考察了有无旁观者以及旁观者与个体的亲密程度对后悔情绪的影响。结果发现:(1)相对于无人在场,旁观者在场时个体更不后悔;(2)旁观者与个体间的亲密度能够在一定程度上影响个体的后悔情绪:在错过所有收益引发后悔的条件下,相对于无人在场,陌生人在场时个体更不后悔,而恋人在场时个体后悔情绪无明显变化。本研究的发现可以更好地帮助人们理解社会背景下后悔情绪的影响因素和发生机制。     

Modulating what is and what could have been: The effect of transcranial direct current stimulation on the evaluation of attained and unattained decision outcomes

The affective evaluation of decision outcomes, whether attained (e.g., disappointment) or based on the conscious realization that a decision made differently would have led to a better or worse outcome (e.g., regret), greatly influence future decisions. Prior research has demonstrated a role of the medial and orbitofrontal cortex (M/OFC) in decision valuation and the experience of regret and relief. Here we examined whether inhibitory transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) could dampen the experience of decision-induced affect, with a focus on regret and relief. Thirty-eight participants completed a previously used gambling task and were asked to rate their happiness with attained outcomes of a chosen gamble before and after being shown unattained, counterfactual outcomes (i.e., what would have happened had they selected the other gamble). The difference in happiness rating before and after revealing these unattained counterfactual outcomes was taken as a measure of regret (negative shift) or relief (positive shift). During this task, 20 participants received 2 mA cathodal tDCS over EEG coordinate Fp1 for 20 minutes, and 18 participants received sham stimulation over the same location. Linear mixed-model results showed that, compared to sham, participants who received cathodal tDCS reported less intense emotions in response to attained as well as counterfactual outcomes. These findings were not due to the groups differing in the gambles they selected or attained monetary outcomes, demonstrating that tDCS can modulate decision-induced (counterfactual) affect. This may have implications for the ability to modulate value-based decision-making using brain stimulation techniques more broadly.     

Executive control and the experience of regret

The experience of regret rests on a counterfactual analysis of events. Previous research indicates that regret emerges at around 6 years of age, marginally later than the age at which children begin to answer counterfactual questions correctly. We hypothesized that the late emergence of regret relative to early counterfactual thinking is a result of the executive demands of simultaneously holding in mind and comparing dual representations of reality (counterfactual and actual). To test this hypothesis, we administered two regret tasks along with four tests of executive function (two working memory tasks, a switch task, and an inhibition task) to a sample of 104 4- to 7-year-olds. Results indicated that switching, but not working memory or inhibition, was a significant predictor of whether or not children experienced regret. This finding corroborates and extends previous research showing that the development of counterfactual thinking in children is related to their developing executive competence.     

Counterfactually mediated emotions: a developmental study of regret and relief in a probabilistic gambling task

Regret and relief are related to counterfactual thinking and rely on comparison processes between what has been and what might have been. In this article, we study the development of regret and relief from late childhood to adulthood (11.2-20.2 years), and we examine how these two emotions affect individuals' willingness to retrospectively reconsider their choice in a computerized monetary gambling task. We asked participants to choose between two "wheels of fortune" that differed in the amount of gain and loss expected and the probability of winning. We manipulated the outcome of the wheel of fortune that was not selected by participants to induce regret or relief. For each trial, participants rated how they felt about the outcome and their willingness to modify their choice. Participants' ratings suggest that regret and relief are stronger in adults than in children and adolescents. Regret affects participants' willingness to modify their initial choice, but this desire is stronger for adults than for children. In children, the experience of regret seems to be dissociated from the willingness to reconsider a choice. This study provides the first evidence that the ability to experience counterfactually mediated emotions, such as regret and relief, and the ability to take them into consideration continue to develop during late childhood and adolescence.     

Different Attentional Patterns for Regret and Disappointment: An Eye‐tracking Study

The unfavorable comparison between the obtained and expected outcomes of our choices may elicit disappointment. When the comparison is made with the outcome of alternative actions, emotions like regret can serve as a learning signal. Previous work showed that both anticipated disappointment and regret influence decisions. In addition, experienced regret is associated with higher emotional responses than disappointment. Yet it is not clear whether this amplification is due to additive effects of disappointment and regret when the outcomes of alternative actions are available, or whether it reflects the learning feature of regret signals. In this perspective, we used eye‐tracking to measure the visual pattern of information acquisition in a probabilistic lottery task. In the partial feedback condition, only the outcome of the chosen lottery was revealed, while in the complete feedback condition, participants could compare their outcome with that of the non‐chosen lottery, giving them the opportunity to experience regret. During the decision phase, visual patterns of information acquisition were consistent with the assessment of anticipated regret, in addition to a clear assessment of lotteries' expected values. During the feedback phase, subjective ratings and eye‐tracking results confirmed that participants compared their outcome with the outcome of the non‐chosen lottery in the complete feedback condition, particularly after a loss, and ignored the non‐realized outcome of the chosen option. Moreover, participants who made more visual saccades consistent with counterfactual comparisons during the feedback period anticipated regret more in their decisions. These results are consistent with the proposed adaptive function of regret. © 2016 The Authors Journal of Behavioral Decision Making Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

反事实思维与后悔的关系：调节模式的调节作用

已有研究表明反事实思维越多则后悔越强烈。本研究试图通过两项实验分别探讨特质性、情境性调节模式是否影响反事实思维与后悔之间的关系。结果表明：特质性调节模式及情境性调节模式均对反事实思维与后悔之间的关系具有调节作用,具体来说,针对情境性调节模式而言,运动模式下加法式思维越多则后悔越轻微,评估模式下加法式思维越多则后悔越强烈;针对特质性调节模式而言,运动模式下加法式思维越多则后悔越轻微。     

Conditional Reasoning and Emotional Experience: A Review of the Development of Counterfactual Thinking

What do human beings use conditional reasoning for? A psychological consequence of counterfactual conditional reasoning is emotional experience, in particular, regret and relief. Adults’ thoughts about what might have been influence their evaluations of reality. We discuss recent psychological experiments that chart the relationship between children’s ability to engage in conditional reasoning and their experience of counterfactual emotions. Relative to conditional reasoning, counterfactual emotions are late developing. This suggests that children need not only competence in conditional reasoning, but also to engage in this thinking spontaneously. Developments in domain general cognitive processing (the executive functions) allow children to develop from conditional reasoning to reasoning with counterfactual content and, eventually, to experiencing counterfactual emotions.     

后悔的认知机制和神经基础

后悔是基于对不利或相对不利行为结果的反事实思维诱发的一种复杂的负性社会情绪,对我们日常生活的决策和身心健康具有重大的影响。与失望情绪相比,后悔在现象学、产生条件以及评价方式等方面具有明显的差异。后悔不仅会受到个体的行为方式、人格特征、归因等因素的影响,而且还会受到结果信息属性的影响。后悔的预期和体验涉及的功能性脑区主要包括：眶额皮层、扣带前回、海马、杏仁核。研究后悔的实验方法和技术手段有待于进一步拓展,后悔的认知机制和神经基础还有待于进一步探讨和完善     

The differential effect of realistic and unrealistic counterfactual thinking on regret

Research has established that realistic counterfactual thinking can determine the intensity and the content of people's affective reactions to decision outcomes and events. Not much is known, however, about the affective consequences of counterfactual thinking that is unrealistic (i.e., that does not correspond to the main causes of a negative outcome). In three experiments, we investigate the influence of realistic and unrealistic counterfactuals on experienced regret after negative outcomes. In Experiment 1, we found that participants who thought unrealistically about a poor outcome reported less regret than those who thought realistically about it. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we replicated this finding and we showed that the decrease in regret was associated with a shift in the causal attributions of the poor outcome. Participants who thought unrealistically attributed it more to external circumstances and less to their own behaviours than those who thought realistically about it. We discuss the implications of these findings for the role of counterfactuals as self-serving biases and the functionality of regret as a counterfactual emotion.     

Comparisons, mental models, and the action effect in judgments of regret

People tend to attribute more regret to a character who has decided to take action and experienced a negative outcome than to one who has decided not to act and experienced a negative outcome. For some decisions, however, this finding is not observed in a between-participants design and thus appears to rely on comparisons between people's representations of action and their representations of inaction. In this article, we outline a mental models account that explains findings from studies that have used within- and between-participants designs, and we suggest that, for decisions with uncertain counterfactual outcomes, information about the consequences of a decision to act causes people to flesh out their representation of the counterfactual states of affairs for inaction. In three experiments, we confirm our predictions about participants' fleshing out of representations, demonstrating that an action effect occurs only when information about the consequences of action is available to participants as they rate the nonactor and when this information about action is informative with respect to judgments about inaction. It is important to note that the action effect always occurs when the decision scenario specifies certain counterfactual outcomes. These results suggest that people sometimes base their attributions of regret on comparisons among different sets of mental models.     

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 response to an unfavorable outcome of a decision. Previous research suggests that both emotions are related to the process of counterfactual thinking. The present research extends this idea by combining it with ideas from regret and disappointment theory. The results show that regret is related to behavior-focused counterfactual thought in which the decision-maker's own actions are changed, whereas disappointment is related to situation-focused counterfactual thought in which aspects of the situation are changed. In Study 1 participants (N= 130) were asked to recall an autobiographical episode of either a regretful or a disappointing event. When asked to undo this event, regret participants predominantly changed their own actions, whereas disappointment participants predominantly changed aspects of the situation. In Study 2 all participants (N= 50) read a scenario in which a person experiences a negative event. Participants who were instructed to undo the event by changing the person's actions reported more regret than disappointment, while participants who were instructed to undo the event by changing aspects of the situation reported more disappointment than regret. Study 3 (N= 140) replicated the findings from Study 2 with a different scenario, and a design in which regret and disappointment were measured between rather than within subjects. In the discussion we address the relation among counterfactual thinking, attributions and affective reactions to decision outcomes, and the implications for decision research.     

On the Counterfactual Nature of Gambling Near‐misses: An Experimental Study

Research on gambling near‐misses has shown that objectively equivalent outcomes can yield divergent emotional and motivational responses. The subjective processing of gambling outcomes is affected substantially by close but non‐obtained outcomes (i.e. counterfactuals). In the current paper, we investigate how different types of near‐misses influence self‐perceived luck and subsequent betting behavior in a wheel‐of‐fortune task. We investigate the counterfactual mechanism of these effects by testing the relationship with a second task measuring regret/relief processing. Across two experiments (Experiment 1, n = 51; Experiment 2, n = 104), we demonstrate that near‐wins (neutral outcomes that are close to a jackpot) decreased self‐perceived luck, whereas near‐losses (neutral outcomes that are close to a major penalty) increased luck ratings. The effects of near‐misses varied by near‐miss position (i.e. whether the spinner stopped just short of, or passed through, the counterfactual outcome), consistent with established distinctions between upward versus downward, and additive versus subtractive, counterfactual thinking. In Experiment 1, individuals who showed stronger counterfactual processing on the regret/relief task were more responsive to near‐wins and near‐losses on the wheel‐of‐fortune task. The effect of near‐miss position was attenuated when the anticipatory phase (i.e. the spin and deceleration) was removed in Experiment 2. Further differences were observed within the objective gains and losses, between “clear” and “narrow” outcomes. Taken together, these results help substantiate the counterfactual mechanism of near‐misses. © 2017 The Authors Journal of Behavioral Decision Making Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.     

Regret and the Consciousness of the Past

This paper offers a phenomenological analysis of (1) the relationship between regret and episodic memory, (2) the temporal structure of ‘regretful memory’, (3) the affective and evaluative dimension of regretful memory and (4) the counterfactual dimension of regretful memory. Based on Husserl’s phenomenology, I offer an analysis of regret’s complex structures of intentionality and time-consciousness. Husserl held that episodic memory requires two temporal orientations on one’s own experience: the past now that one relives and the present now in which one does the reliving. If memory generally entails two temporal perspectives, regretful memory brings in a third point of temporal reference: that now that could have been. Drawing on Hoerl and McCormack, I give an account of regret as a mnemic and counterfactual form of intentional consciousness that confronts an alternative past and attempts to negotiate between two essential yet conflicting features of its actual past: its contingency and its irreversibility. On this basis, I then draw on Bagnoli to offer a phenomenological theory of regretful memory as an emotional mode of valuing possibilities that belong to the past.     

Children's understanding of counterfactual emotions: Age differences,individual differences,and the effects of counterfactual‐information salience

The present study investigated developmental trends in the effects of the salience of counterfactual alternatives on judgments of others' counterfactual‐thinking‐based emotions. We also examined possible correlates of individual differences in the understanding of these emotions. Thirty‐four adults and 102 children, 5–8 years of age, were presented scenarios in which characters would be expected to experience regret. In one version of each scenario, the regret‐relevant counterfactual alternative was made more salient than was the case with the other version. Adults consistently judged that a character for whom a counterfactual course of events would have resulted in a better outcome would feel worse than a character for whom an alternative course of events would not have resulted in a more positive outcome. The majority of the children's judgments were not affected by the counterfactual alternatives. However, the judgments of the oldest children (the 8‐year‐olds) were significantly more adult‐like in the high‐salience than in the low‐salience condition. Although the three predictors examined in the present study (verbal ability, working memory capacity, second‐order false belief task performance) together accounted for significant variance in performance on the emotions judgment task, no single predictor alone accounted for significant unique variance in performance. The importance of different social cognitive abilities for understanding people's affective responses is discussed.     

Counterfactual seeking: The scenic overlook of the road not taken

Decision makers faced with an opportunity to learn the outcome of a foregone alternative must balance anticipated regret, should that information be unfavorable, with the potential benefits of this information in reducing experienced regret. Counterfactual seeking, the choice to learn more about foregone alternatives, may be a functional, regret-regulating strategy for individuals already experiencing regret. Counterfactual seeking increases in response to dissatisfying outcomes (Studies 1 and 2). Counterfactual seeking is generally able to reduce dissatisfaction (Study 2), regardless of whether individuals personally chose to view this information or were randomly assigned to do so (Study 3). Moreover, both imaginative (vs. factual) thoughts about the foregone option and upward (vs. downward) counterfactual thoughts play a role in this improvement in satisfaction (Study 4). Regret thus has a complex influence in how individuals engage with counterfactual information.     

Counterfactual Evaluation of Outcomes in Social Risk Decision-Making Situations: The Cognitive Developmental Paradox Revisited

We report a study that examined the existence of a cognitive developmental paradox in the counterfactual evaluation of decision-making outcomes. According to this paradox adolescents and young adults could be able to apply counterfactual reasoning and, yet, their counterfactual evaluation of outcomes could be biased in a salient socio-emotional context. To this aim, we analyzed the impact of health and social feedback on the counterfactual evaluation of outcomes in a laboratory decision-making task involving short narratives with the presence of peers. Forty risky (e.g., taking or refusing a drug), forty neutral decisions (e.g., eating a hamburger or a hotdog), and emotions felt following positive or negative outcomes were examined in 256 early, mid- and late adolescents, and young adults, evenly distributed. Results showed that emotional ratings to negative outcomes (regret and disappointment) but not to positive outcomes (relief and elation) were attenuated when feedback was provided. Evidence of development of cognitive decision-making capacities did also exist, as the capacity to perform faster emotional ratings and to differentially allocate more resources to the elaboration of emotional ratings when no feedback information was available increased with age. Overall, we interpret these findings as challenging the traditional cognitive developmental assumption that development necessarily proceeds from lesser to greater capacities, reflecting the impact of socio-emotional processes that could bias the counterfactual evaluation of social decision-making outcomes.     

Is understanding regret dependent on developments in counterfactual thinking?

Children's understanding of counterfactual emotions such as regret and relief develops relatively late compared to their ability to imagine counterfactual worlds. We tested whether a late development in counterfactual thinking: understanding counterfactuals as possibilities, underpinned children's understanding of regret. Thirty 5‐ and 6‐year‐olds completed tasks assessing counterfactual thinking and understanding regret. Performance on the counterfactual task was better than that on the regret task. We suggest that thinking about counterfactuals as possibilities is a necessary but not sufficient cognitive development in children's understanding of regret. We discuss how other developments in counterfactual thinking may underpin children's emotional understanding.     

Regret and the negative evaluation of decision outcomes in major depression

Disruption of normal emotional experience is central to the phenomenology of depression. Twenty-three depressed outpatients and 23 control subjects performed a computerized decision-making task, during which affective ratings were assessed online to identify various dimensions of emotional experience. We sought to contrast regret (the comparison of the outcomes of selected and nonselected options) with the general negative appraisal of task events. The experience of regret was reduced in depressed patients, an effect that was particularly related to self-reported apathy scores. In an exploratory analysis, we observed that females had a general downward shift in their ratings, as compared with males, but disappointment and regret effects were of similar magnitude. The possible contribution of the orbitofrontal cortex to the phenomenology of regret is discussed. Supplemental materials for this article may be downloaded from http://cabn.psychonomic-journals.org/content/ supplemental.     

Counterfactual Reasoning for Regretted Situations Involving Controllable Versus Uncontrollable Events: The Modulating Role of Contingent Self-Esteem

We report a study that examined the modulating impact of contingent self-esteem on regret intensity for regretted outcomes associated with controllable versus uncontrollable events. The Contingent Self-Esteem Scale (e.g., Kernis & Goldman, 2006) was used to assess the extent to which a person’s sense of self-worth is based on self and others’ expectations. We found that there was an influence of self-esteem contingency for controllable but not for uncontrollable regret types. For controllable regret types individuals with a high contingent (i.e., unstable) self-esteem reported greater regret intensity than those with a low contingent (i.e., stable) self-esteem. We interpret this finding as reflecting a functional and adaptive role of high contingent self-esteem in terms of mobilizing the application of counterfactual reasoning and planning mechanisms that can enable personal expectations to be achieved in the future.