Regret and Responsibility Resolved? Evaluating Ordóñez and Connolly's (2000) Conclusions

T. Connolly, L. D. Ordo;aan;atez, and R. Coughlan (1997, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 70, 73-85) argued, on the basis of 5 experiments, that regret need not be related to a sense of responsibility for the regretted outcome. We (M. Zeelenberg, W. W. van Dijk, & A. S. R. Manstead, 1998, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 74, 254-272) showed in 2 experiments that this conclusion was premature, because it was based on an indirect measure of regret (i.e., overall happiness with the decision outcome). When regret was directly measured, the predicted effects of responsibility were found. L. D. Ordo;aan;atez and T. Connolly (2000, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81, 132-142) replicated our findings in 2 experiments. Based on their findings they arrived at 4 conclusions. In this rejoinder we first discuss Ordó?ez and Connolly's new studies and we then discuss the validity of their 4 conclusions. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.     

Neural substrates for episodic encoding and recognition of unfamiliar faces

Functional MRI was used to investigate brain activation in healthy volunteers during encoding of unfamiliar faces as well as during correct recognition of newly learned faces (CR) compared to correct identification of distractor faces (CF), missed alarms (not recognizing previously presented faces, MA), and false alarms (incorrectly recognizing newly presented faces, FA). Encoding was associated with frontal, occipital/fusiform, thalamic, and cerebellar activation. CR produced activation in frontal and cerebellar regions, whereas CF activated frontal and occipitotemporal regions as well as the thalamus. In contrast, MA was associated with frontal and thalamic activation, and FA with frontal activation. The CR minus CF comparison showed left lateral prefrontal and parietal activation, while no suprathreshold positive signal changes were detected when subtracting the other conditions (CR minus MA, CR minus FA, and vice versa). These results support the view that the successful episodic retrieval of newly learned faces is based on a dorsal visual stream mechanism.     

Berufsbezogene Werthaltungen

Job related work values were assessed in 68 participants of a psychotherapy training program and 30 students of two management courses. All three were academic based programs. Two inventories were used to identify potential differences, namely the Work Values Inventory (Seifert and Bergmann 1983) and the Questionnaire on Work and Job Related Behavior and Emotion Patterns (Schaarschmidt and Fischer 1996). There were significant group differences concerning job involvement, ambition, need for change and autonomy, willingness for overexertion, ability to keep distance and work values oriented toward income and career. No differences were found concerning the subjective importance of work, the tendency to resignation, the quality of life, the experience of social support and values related to work climate. These findings corroborate some of the stereotypes associated with these two areas of work.     

The neural regions sustaining episodic encoding and recognition of objects

In this functional MRI experiment, encoding of objects was associated with activation in left ventrolateral prefrontal/insular and right dorsolateral prefrontal and fusiform regions as well as in the left putamen. By contrast, correct recognition of previously learned objects (R judgments) produced activation in left superior frontal, bilateral inferior frontal, and right cerebellar regions, whereas correct rejection of distractor objects (N judgments) was associated with activation in bilateral prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, in right parietal and cerebellar regions, in the left putamen, and in the right caudate nucleus. The R minus N comparison showed activation in the left lateral prefrontal cortex and in bilateral cingulate cortices and precunei, while the N minus R comparison did not reveal any positive signal change. These results support the view that similar regions of the frontal lobe are involved in episodic encoding and retrieval processes, and that the successful episodic retrieval of newly learned objects is mainly based on a frontoparietal network.