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Imagine that you are a finalist in a television quiz and onecrucial decision keeps you from winning a million dollars. The conceptis simple: one choice, everything or nothing. The show host presents youwith two identical boxes, one containing the money, the other containingnothing. After some hesitation, you choose one of the boxes. The hostopens the box you did not choose and you see that it contains the money.You realize that you chose the wrong box.
In situations like this, people are typically haunted bycounterfactual thoughts on how things could have been if they had chosendifferently. Mental time travel, vivid simulations of alternativeactions, and other reverie are considered to be characteristic for theemotion of regret (Landman 1993). Researchers have argued that besidesthese cognitive characteristics, regret has particular motivationalqualities: Regret is said to be associated with the desire to undo theadverse outcomes of one's decisions, with reparative actiontendencies, and with goal persistence (Zeelenberg and Picters 2004a,2006, 2007; Zeelenberg et al. 1998b, 2000). In this paper, weinvestigated the relations between causing a negative outcome oneself,wanting to repair that outcome, and feelings of regret. We examinedwhether negative outcomes that are caused by oneself are associated witha stronger tendency to repair the outcome than negative outcomes thatare not caused by oneself. In addition, our studies shed a new light onthe relation between regret and the tendency to repair.
In contemporary emotion theories, emotions are often defined asmulticomponential phenomena, consisting of (a) a cognitive component orappraisal of the situation, (b) a motivational component or actiontendency, (c) a somatic component or (neuro)physiological responses, (d)a motor component or expressive behavior, and (e) a feeling component orsubjective experience (Frijda et al. 1989; Moors 2009; Roseman 2001;Scherer 2005). The feeling component is considered a reflection of theother components (appraisal, action tendencies, physiology, and/orbehavior) in consciousness (dc Rivera 1977; Scherer 2005; Sonnemans andFrijda 1994). Particular feelings (i.e., patterns in the continuous flowof componential changes that surface in awareness) are labeled withemotion words such as regret, anger, fear, disappointment, and joy(Moors 2009; Scherer 2009).
Previous studies have investigated the appraisal process thatshapes the feeling called regret. Appraisal is a process in whichstimuli are evaluated on a number of appraisal variables, such as goalrelevance, goal congruence, expectancy, coping potential, futureexpectancy, agency (i.e., the cause of an event: self, other,circ*mstances), and fairness (Frijda 1986; Lazarus 1991; Roseman et al.1996; Scherer 1988). These studies typically reveal that regret,together with guilt and shame, is part of a class of feelings thatreflect that a stimulus is appraised as goal incongruent and caused bythe self (Shefrin and Statman 1985; Zeelenberg et al. 2000). Othernegative feelings reflect that a stimulus is appraised as goalincongruent and caused by others (e.g., anger) or by circ*mstances(e.g., fear, sadness, and disappointment; Roseman et al. 1996; van Dijket al. 1999; van Dijk and Zeelenberg 2002; Zeelenberg et al. 1998a, c).The appraisal of agency thus seems crucial to differentiate regret fromother negative feelings. Other appraisals differentiate regret fromguilt and shame. Research has suggested that shame is felt when a personappraises him- or herself as bad or as having failed to live up topersonal standards (Keltner and Buswell 1996; Tangney et al. 1996; Tracyand Robins 2006), whereas guilt is felt when a person appraises that heor she has caused harm to another person (Keltner and Buswell 1996;Zeelenberg and Breugelmans 2008).
Researchers have argued that the feeling of regret also reflectsthe activation of a specific action tendency: the tendency to repair thegoal-incongruent event. For instance, Zeelenberg et al. (1998b, p. 224)wrote: "We conclude that the experience of regret involves a focuson the self as a cause of the event, and on possibilities for undoingthe regret by changing the unfavourable outcome or by improving futureperformance." Other negative feelings reflect the activation ofother action tendencies, such as the tendency to attack for anger, toobtain safety for fear, to disappear from sight for shame, and to becomepassive and turn away from the goal-incongruent event for disappointment(Frijda 1986; Lazarus 1991; Roseman et al. 1994; Zeelenberg et al.1998c). Repairing a goal-incongruent event can take different forms.Some authors suggest that regret is related to one particular type ofrepair tendency: The tendency to redo but correct the initial behaviorthat gave rise to the goal-incongruent event (Roseman 2011). Otherauthors do not seem to impose such restrictions (e.g., Zeelenberg et al.I 998c). For instance, when burning your birthday cake in the oven, youcan repair this by making a new cake, but setting the alarm clock (i.e.,redo, but correct), or by a wider range of actions such as buying a cakein the bakery or making another dessert. In the first, more restrictedproposal, the appraisal of self-agency is logically implied in thedefinition of the action tendency: In order to redo but correct abehavior, the initial behavior must have been performed by oneself. Inthe second proposal, the concepts of appraisal and action tendency canbe separated, which allows investigating the influence of one on theother.
In sum, previous research suggests that an appraisal of self-agencyand a tendency to repair discriminate the feeling of regret from variousother negative feelings. These studies focused either on the relationbetween regret and appraisals or on the relation between regret andaction tendencies, neglecting the relation among appraisals and actiontendencies. The aim of the present research is to examine the relationbetween the appraisal of self-agency and the tendency to repair.
We start by listing three possible ways in which the appraisal ofself-agency and the tendency to repair can be related. A firstpossibility is that there is a causal relation. Several appraisaltheorists (e.g., Frijda et al. 1989; Scherer 1994) suggest thatappraisals cause action tendencies. Thus, it has been argued that anappraisal pattern of goal-incongruence plus self-agency may cause thetendency to repair. For instance, van Dijk and Zeelenberg (2002, p. 329)propose that the motivational differences between regret anddisappointment may be produced by differences in the appraisals ofa*gency and/or legitimacy (for a similar position, see Martinez et al.2011, p. 963). In principle, however, it is also possible that thetendency to repair causes the appraisal of self-agency or that theyexert a mutual causal influence on each other (Moors and Scherer 2013;Scherer 2009).
A second possibility is that there is not a causal relation betweenthe appraisal of self-agency and the tendency to repair, but only atemporal co-occurrence (Parkinson 1997). A reason for such aco-occurrence may be that the appraisal of self-agency co-occurs withanother appraisal and that this other appraisal causes the tendency torepair. For instance, goal-incongruent events caused by oneselftypically may be more easy to cope with than goal-incongruent eventscaused by others or by circ*mstances. In turn, high coping potential maylead to the tendency to repair the event.
A third possibility is that there is not an actual but only asemantic relation between the appraisal of self-agency and the tendencyto repair (Parkinson 1997). For instance, layman's theories aboutregret may assume a link between self-agency and the tendency to repair(culturally inherited or acquired otherwise) that does not reflectreality.
In a first study, we examined whether the appraisal of self-agencyhas a causal influence on the tendency to repair. Previous research hasexamined the influence of this appraisal on a variety of behaviors thatcould be interpreted as manifestations of the tendency to repair. Afirst set of studies have shown that an appraisal of self-agencyencourages a person to seek information about an obtained outcome andpossible alternatives (Reb and Connolly 2009; Shani and Zcelenberg2007). Information seeking can serve the goal to repair agoal-incongruent outcome or the goal to prevent a repetition ofgoal-incongruent outcomes in the future. A second set of studies showthat self-agency leads to behavioral persistence or the escalation ofcommitment in investments (Staw 1976) and in gambling (Clark ct al.2012, 2009). Behavioral persistence can be considered a manifestation ofthe tendency to repair if it is guided by the idea that it can undo aloss. A third set of studies suggest that the appraisal of self-agency(or self-blame) increases prosocial behavior toward an unrelated thirdparty (Freedman et al. 1967; Kctelaar and Au 2003; Regan et al. 1972,but see Cialdini et al. 1973; Rawlings 1968, and Regan 1971, for failedreplications, and Cunningham et al. 1980, for boundary conditions).Helping a third party can be seen as an expression of the tendency torepair one's image rather than the goal-incongruent situation.There are also studies that measured the tendency to reconcile with orhelp the person that one has hurt, instead of helping an unrelated thirdparty. Some of these studies found a significant influence ofself-agency on the tendency to repair (Carlsmith and Gross 1969; deHooge et al. 2011; Freedman et al. 1967; Parkinson and Illingworth2009), but others did not (Konecni 1972; Struthers et al. 2008).
The majority of the cited studies manipulated self-agency in asocial context (i.e., participants caused a goal-incongruent situationfor another person) because they focused on feelings of guilt, which arethought to reflect the appraisal that one has caused interpersonal harm(Baumeister et al. 1994; Keltner and Buswell 1996). Regret and guilt arcbelieved to overlap partly. Both are assumed to be characterized by thetendency to repair (Baumeister et at. 1995; Haidt 2003; Roseman et al.1994), but feelings of regret can arise in a broader range of situationsthan feelings of guilt, including non-social ones (Zeelenberg andBreugelmans 2008). The mixed results concerning the relation betweenself-agency and the tendency to repair could be due to the complexsocial contexts that were used to study guilt. For instance, Konecni(1972) compared a group of participants who caused someone to drop afolder with cards (self-agency) with a group that saw that someone elsecaused it (other-agency) and observed that the first group feltembarrassed and, therefore, quickly disappeared from sight. In a socialcontext, feelings of shame and fear (e.g., for angry reactions fromothers) and the tendency to avoid may be stronger than the tendency torepair. If so, the relation between self-agency and the tendency torepair may be more robust outside a social context. On the other hand,it could also be that the social context is necessary for obtaining thisrelation. The few studies that examined the role of self-agency outsidea social context unfortunately measured behaviors that may stem fromother motivations than the tendency to repair. For instance, informationseeking may stem from the tendency to reduce uncertainty rather than thetendency to repair (Shani and Zeelenberg 2007).
In Study 1, we examined the influence of the appraisal ofself-agency on the tendency to repair in a non-social context, usingdependent measures that were designed specifically to pick up thetendency to repair. In a multiple-trial game, participants encounteredgoal-congruent and goal-incongruent outcomes caused by themselves(self-agency) vs. caused by a die (circ*mstances-agency). We expectedthat the manipulation of agency would not be confounded with otherappraisals, such as goal congruence or (un)faimess, because a die is afair medium. The tendency to repair was measured via actual repairbehavior after each encounter with a goal-incongruent outcome and viaself-reports at the end of the experiment. A schematic overview of thehypotheses is shown in Fig. 1. Following appraisal theories, our firsthypothesis (H1) was that there would be a causal relation between theappraisal of self-agency and the tendency to repair: Goal-incongruentoutcomes caused by the self elicit a stronger tendency to repair thangoal-incongruent outcomes caused by circ*mstances.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
In addition to the causal relation between the appraisal ofself-agency and the tendency to repair, Study 1 also aimed toinvestigate (a) the relation between the appraisal of self-agency andthe feeling of regret and (b) the relation between the tendency torepair and the feeling of regret. Previous studies using scenario(Zeelenberg et al. 1998a) and recall methods (Zeelenberg et al. 1998c)have provided support for these relations. However, both methods havemet with serious criticisms (Parrott and Hertel 1999). Therefore, wetried to replicate these findings in a carefully controlled experimentin which the appraisal of agency was manipulated with actual events andparticipants' feelings of regret, disappointment, and anger werecollected. In line with previous studies (van Dijk and Zeelenberg 2002;Zeelenberg et at 1998a), our second hypothesis was that goal-incongruentevents caused by oneself would elicit more regret than goal-incongruentevents caused by circ*mstances (H2a) but not more disappointment andanger (H2b). Moreover, also in line with previous studies (Zeelenberg etal. 1998c) our third hypothesis was that the tendency to repair would beassociated with feelings of regret (H3a) but not with other negativefeelings such as disappointment and anger (H3b). Study 1 producedseveral findings that diverged from the literature. These were furtherexamined in Study 2.
Study 1
Participants played a choice game on the computer in which theytried to win points. High scores were rewarded with lottery tickets. Thegame consisted of a series of trials on which the participant steered anavatar in the upper or lower road of a fork (see Fig. 2). There was apiece of food at the end of each road. On self-agency trials theparticipant could choose a road; on circ*mstance-agency trials theexperimenter rolled a die that determined which road the participant hadto take. The participant then moved the avatar in the upper or lowerroad toward the piece of food. When the avatar reached the food, bothpieces of food turned into points: one piece turned into ten points, theother into zero points. Goal-congruent trials were those on which theavatar had taken the road with ten points. Goal-incongruent trials werethose on which the avatar had taken the road with zero points. On eachgoal-incongruent trial a fix button appeared. The participant could tryto repair the goal-incongruent outcome by moving the avatar toward thisbutton and pressing it a number of times. On half of thegoal-incongruent trials, pressing the fix button resulted in regainingthe ten points; on the other half, it did not. The participant had todecide on each goal-incongruent trial whether to repair (by movingtoward the fix button) and how long to keep trying to repair (how manytimes to press the fix button). The number of repair responses was usedas a measure for the tendency to repair. At the end of the experiment wealso assessed the self-reported tendency to repair on self-agency trialsand on circ*mstances-agency trials. The repair behavior in our study wasnot costly nor limited to a number of predetermined responses. This wasdone to encourage participants to respond according to their intuitionrather than according to some strategy that might be based on otherfactors than agency (e.g., available resources).
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
Method
Participants
A total of 26 students ([M.sub.age] = 21 years; 12 women) at GhentUniversity participated in the study, 19 in return for course creditsand seven in return for payment (8 [euro]) (1).
Apparatus
The experiment was programmed in C++ and run in Visual Studio 6.0.It was displayed on a 19" CRT screen. The game map consisted of atwo-dimensional maze with turquoise walls and grey paths, forming sixhorizontally positioned forks and a connection between them that wasblocked by a brown wall. The six forks were arranged in three layers oftwo forks (see Fig. 2). If the avatar had reached the end of the sixthfork, it was automatically transported back to the first fork.Participants used the arrow keys on the keyboard to move the avatarthrough the maze. Participants won a lottery ticket (a scratch-and-wincard) during the game. Each card yielded 25 % chance of winning a moneyprize between 1 and 10,000 [euro].
Procedure
All participants were tested individually in a session of 1 h. Theexperimenter was seated next to the participant except when theparticipant filled in the questionnaire. Before the start of theexperiment, each participant signed an informed consent form. Theexperiment was a choice game consisting of 160 trials (i.e., 160 timescrossing a fork). A trial started when the avatar reached the brown wallthat blocked the next fork. The brown wall then disappeared and two fooditems appeared, one in the upper and one in the lower road of the fork.The participant then moved the avatar toward the start of the fork, atwhich time the word "ik", which is Dutch for "me"(on self-agency trials, 80 trials) or a picture of a die (oncirc*mstances-agency trials, 80 trials) appeared in front of the avatar(see Fig. 3). On self-agency trials, the participant chose a road bysaying "boven" (which is Dutch for "up") or"onder" (which is Dutch for "down"). He/she thenpressed ENTER to remove the word "ik" and steered the avatarin the road of his/her choice. On circ*mstances-agency trials, theexperimenter rolled a real die with the labels B and 0 and named theoutcome of the die (if B then "boven"; if 0 then"onder"). The participant pressed ENTER to remove the pictureof the die and then steered the avatar in the road indicated by the die.As soon as the avatar entered one of the roads, the roads were closedoff by a brown wall to prevent the avatar from going back. Our coverstory provided participants with explicit instructions on how to choosea road/food during the game:
The computer determines via a very complex algorithm (2) which number of points is behind which food. This algorithm is too difficult to discover, but research has shown that if people follow their intuition they perform better than according to chance level. We would like to test this hypothesis. This is why we ask you to make choices according to your intuition. Try to ask yourself each time the following question: "Which choice feels best?"
When the avatar reached the food in the upper or lower road, bothfood items were replaced with a number. On goal-congruent trials (60 %of the trials), the food next to the avatar was replaced with ten andthe other with zero (see Fig. 3), a positive sound was played, and theparticipant's score was increased by ten points. After the pointswere shown, the game froze for 500 ms and a new trial began. Ongoal-incongruent trials (40 % of the trials), the food item next to theavatar was replaced with zero and the other item with ten, a negativesound was played, and the score remained unchanged. The game then frozefor 500 ms before a sideway with a fix button appeared (see Fig. 3). Theparticipant could either move the avatar toward the fix button and tryto repair the goal-incongruent outcome, or move the avatar toward thebrown wall that blocked the next fork to start a new trial. The computerdetermined at random which trials were goal congruent and which trialswere goal incongruent.
[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]
On half of the goal-incongruent trials, the ten points could beregained after pressing the fix button ten to thirty times. The exactnumber of required button presses was determined at random on each trialand was unknown to the participants (participants also did not know itwould be a number between ten and thirty). If the participant pressedthe fix button a number of times equal to the random number on thattrial, the ten and zero points switched places, the fix buttondisappeared, a positive sound was played, and the participant'sscore was increased by ten points. After that, a new trial began. On theother half of the negative trials, the ten points could not be regained.The participant had to decide how long to keep pressing the fix buttonbefore starting the next trial (by moving the avatar toward the brownwall that blocked the next fork). The number of button presses on thesetrials was used as an index for the tendency to repair.
All instructions were given orally and were followed by twodemonstration trials and five practice trials. The demonstration trialsconsisted of one goal-congruent self-agency trial and onegoal-incongruent circ*mstances-agency trial. On the goal-incongruenttrial, the experimenter demonstrated how to repair the goal-incongruentoutcome (the ten points were regained after 15 button presses). Thepractice trials consisted of one goal-congruent and two goal-incongruentcirc*mstances-agency trials (one repairable after 15 button presses) andtwo goal-incongruent self-agency trials (one repairable after 15 buttonpresses). We informed participants that on half of the trials repairingwould not work, irrespective of how many times they pressed the fixbutton. Again, we asked participants to use their intuition whendeciding about the number of times to press the button. There was notime limitation for the repair responses nor a speeded responseinstruction. Participants were informed that the game would end aftertheir avatar had completed 160 forks.
Participants were told they would win a lottery ticket afterfinishing a maze combined with a score equal to or higher than 450points, 900 points, and 1350 points. In general, participants had tocomplete about ten mazes to reach a score of 450 points and twenty mazesto reach a score of 900 points. In these cases, a message appeared thatthe 450 or 900 threshold was reached and a lottery ticket was won. Afterthe last trial, the total number of points was displayed (which wasalways below the threshold of 1350 points), together with a message thatthe third lottery ticket was not won.
At the end of the experiment, a questionnaire was administered inwhich we measured appraisals, action tendencies, and feelings separatelyfor self-agency and circ*mstances-agency trials. For each trial type, wepresented four scenes and asked participants to rate items onseven-point scales specified below. Scene 1 depicted the avatar at thestart of a fork, when the word "ik" or a die appeared, andparticipants rated appraisals of expectancy and self-agency. Forexpectancy, they estimated the chance of winning ten points immediately(when the food turned into points) and eventually (at the end of thetrial) on a scale ranging from 1 (very low) to 7 (very high). Forself-agency, they rated the extent to which they felt they couldinfluence the number of points they would win immediately and eventuallyon a scale ranging from 1 (not at all) to 7 (yes completely).
Scene 2 depicted a zero-point outcome and participants ratedappraisals of goal congruence or valence (1 = very negative, 7 = verypositive), fairness (1 = very unfair, 7 = very fair), future expectancy(the likelihood of winning back the ten points after moving into thesideway, 1 = very low,7 = very high), and coping potential (the extentto which the participant estimated he/she could influence the winningback of ten points; 1 = not at all, 7 = yes completely). We alsomeasured feelings of regret, disappointment, and anger, as well as thetendency to repair (on scales ranging from 1 = not at all to 7 = yescompletely). For the tendency to repair, participants indicated (a) theextent to which they were inclined to take the sideway and try to regainthe ten points and (b) the extent to which they were inclined to keeptrying if repairing did not inunediately lead to success.
Results
The behavioral and the self-report data were analyzed via pairedsamples t-tests, Pearson correlation coefficients, and Steiger Z-tests.Before discussing the results for H1 to H3, we tested whether the agencymanipulation was successful and whether it affected only agency or alsoother appraisal variables.
Manipulation Check
As can be seen in Table 1, self-agency trials scored significantlyhigher than circ*mstances-agency trials on the appraisal of self-agency.As expected, participants indicated that they had more influence on thenumber of points they won on self-agency than on circ*mstances-agencytrials. There were no differences between the self- andcirc*mstances-agency trials for the appraisals of valence, fairness,future expectancy, coping potential and expectancy of winning ten pointsimmediately (i.e., when the food turned into points), but there was adifference for the expectancy of winning ten points eventually (i.e., atthe end of the trial). More specifically, participants had higherexpectancies to win the ten points eventually on self-than oncirc*mstances-agency trials.
Table 1 Means (SDs), dependent sample t-tcsts, and effect sizes([g.sub.av]) for the manipulation check, the measures of thetendency to repair, and feelings for self- andcirc*mstances-agency trials Agency Self Circ*mstances t(25)Manipulation Self-agency 3.62 1.32 2.15 1.35 4.21Check (immediate outcome) Sclf-agency 4.04 1.71 2.92 1.60 3.92 (eventual outcome) Expectancy 4.31 0.97 4.15 0. 83 1.16 (immediate outcome) Expectancy 5.08 1.32 4.58 1.10 2.05 (eventual outcome) Valence 3.27 1.15 3.69 1.19 1.39 Fairness 4.27 1.19 4.23 1.21 0.13 Future 4.12 1.42 4.15 1.22 0.21 expectancy Coping 3.46 1.84 3.65 1.77 0.64 potentialTendency to Tendency to 5.92 1.52 6.08 1.35 1.07repair take sideway Tendency to 4.35 1.74 4.23 1.58 0.62 keep repairing Number of 39.66 14.24 39.71 13.50 0.03 repair responsesFeelings Regret 3.85 1.59 2.31 1.59 3.84 Anger 2.12 1.37 1.92 1.44 0.64 Disappointment 4.12 1.66 2.96 1.48 2.81 p-value [g.sub.av]Manipulation <0.001 1.02Check <0.001 0.67 0.26 0.59 0.051 0.66 0.18 -0.36 0.90 0.03 0.83 -0.03 0.53 -0.11Tendency to 0.29 -0.11repair 0.54 0.07 0.98 -0.003Feelings <0.001 0.95 0.53 0.14 0.009 0.71
The Influence of the Appraisal of Agency on the Tendency to Repair
To investigate whether self-agency trials elicited a strongertendency to repair than circ*mstances-agency trials (H1), we inspectedrepair behavior (on-line) and the self-reported tendency to repair (atthe end of the experiment). We first removed all trials for whichrepairing was possible3 (leaving 16 self-agency and 16circ*mstances-agency trials in the analysis), and all trials in whichthe number of repair responses deviated more than 2.5 SDs from the meanson self-agency and circ*mstances-agency trials (1.56 % of the trials)4.Subsequently, we calculated the average number of repair responses onself- and circ*mstances-agency trials. Dependent-samples t-tests showedthat participants did not repair more on self- than oncirc*mstances-agency trials (see Table 1). Additional analyses wereconducted to investigate whether the absence of an effect could be dueto a strategy of participants to press the repair button a fixed numberof times on most (or all) of the trials. The within-subject range of thenumber of repair responses (M=43.50; SD= 26.43) as well as thewithin-subject standard deviation of the number of repair responses(M=10.93, SD= 6.93) suggested that there was trial-to-trial variation inthe number of repair responses participants emitted. Thiswithin-subjects standard deviation was significantly higher on thetrials of interest (in which repairing was not possible) than on theremaining trials (in which repairing was possible and the repair buttondisappeared after ten to 30 button presses), M = 6.26, SD = 1.93), t(25)= 4.07, p < .001. Thus, the variance in repair behavior even exceededthe variance in the number of responses required to repairgoal-incongruent outcomes on the repair-possible trials.
Confirming the data obtained with the behavioral measure, agencydid not significantly influence the self-reported tendency to repair.Neither of the items that measured the tendency to repair revealedsignificant differences for self-agency and circ*mstances-agency trials(not confirming Hi; see Table 1).
The Influence of the Appraisal of Self-agency on Feelings
As predicted, self-agency trials gave rise to stronger feelings ofregret than circ*mstances-agency trials (confirming H2a) and anger didnot differ significantly between self-agency trials andcirc*mstances-agency trials (partly confirming H2b). Contrary to thepredictions, however, self-agency trials also elicited stronger feelingsof disappointment than circ*mstances-agency trials (disconfinning H2b,see Table 1).
The Relation between the Tendency to Repair and Feelings We testedthe hypotheses that the tendency to repair is correlated with feelingsof regret (H3a) but not with feelings of disappointment or anger (H3b).Table 2 presents correlations that were calculated separately forself-agency trials, circ*mstances-agency trials, the difference scoresbetween self-agency and circ*mstances-agency trials, and the averagesacross self-agency and circ*mstances-agency trials. A correlationbetween the difference scores means that the influence of agency onfeelings is correlated with the influence of agency on the tendency torepair. Although there was no main effect of agency on the tendency torepair in previous analyses, it could be that there is interindividualvariation in the effect of agency on the tendency to repair that isrelated to variation in the effect of agency on feelings. Again, we usedboth a behavioral measure and a self-report measure for the tendency torepair. Before calculating correlations between the self-reportedtendency to repair and feelings, we summated the two items used tomeasure the tendency to repair into one scale.
Table 2 Correlations between feelings and the tendency to repairfor self-agency trials (Self), circ*mstances-agency trials(Circ), the difference score between self- and circ*mstances-agency trials (Diff), and the aggregated scores across self-and circ*mstances-agency trials (Total) Self Circ DiffRepair Self [0.01.sub.x]behavior Circ [0.16.sub.x] Difif [0.01.sub.x] TotalSelf-reported Self [0.22.sub.x]*RepairTendency Circ [0.29.sub.x] Diff [0.09.sub.[x] Total Total Self CircRepair [0.39.sub.x](*)behavior [0.39.sub.x]* [0.12.sub.x]Self-reported [0.50.sub.x]*RepairTendency [0.37.sub.x](*) [0.32.sub.x] DifT Total Self CircRepair [0.39.sub.x]*behavior [0.29.sub.x] [0.36.sub.x](*) [0.45.sub.x]*Self-reported [0.I4.sub.[x]*RepairTendency [0.24.sub.x] [0.48.sub.y]* [0.50.sub.x]* Diff TotalRepairbehavior [0.01.sub.x] [0.42.sub.x]*Self-reportedRepairTendency [0.26.sub.x] [0.19.sub.x](*)p < O.1O. *p < 0.05, **p < O.Ol. Correlations for disappointmentand anger received the subscript x if not ditii.rent from thecorrelation for regret depicted on the same line (p > O.1O), thesubscript x'if marginally different from the corrclation forregret depicted on the same line (p < O.1O). and the subscripty if significantly different from the correlation for regretdepicted on the same line (p < O.O5)
The correlations are presented in Table 2. Contrary to thepredictions, none of the correlations between regret and the tendency torepair were significant (neither for the self-reports nor for thebehavioral measures; not confirming H3a). On the other hand, allcorrelations between disappointment and the tendency to repair weresignificant (or marginally so), and a number of correlations betweenanger and the tendency to repair were significant (disconfirming H3b).Steiger Z-scores were calculated to investigate whether the correlationsbetween the tendency to repair and disappointment and the tendency torepair and anger were significantly higher than the correlations betweenthe tendency to repair and regret. As can be seen in Table 2, a subsetof the correlations for disappointment differed significantly from thecorrelations for regret. The correlations between disappointment and thetendency to repair on self-agency trials were higher than thecorrelations between regret and the tendency to repair on these trials:behavioral measures (5), z = 2.12, p = .034, self-report measure, z =1.170, p = .090. Similarly, the correlations between the difference indisappointment on self- and circ*mstances-agency trials and thedifference in the tendency to repair on self- and circ*mstances-agencytrials was higher than the same correlations for regret: behavioralmeasure, z = 1.93, p = .053, self-report measure, z = 2.20, p = .028.Finally, the correlation for disappointment across trials and thetendency to repair across trials was marginally higher than thecorrelation for regret, for the behavioral measure, z = 1.94, p = .053(but not for the self-report measure, z = 1.14, p = .25). Thecorrelations between disappointment and the tendency to repair oncirc*mstances-agency trials were not significantly different from t hecorrelations between regret and the tendency to repair on these trials,zs < 1.31, p > .19 (see Table 2). Contrary to the pattern fordisappointment, none of the correlations for anger were significantlydifferent from those for regret, all zs < 1.51, ps > .13.
Discussion
Study 1 did not provide support for a causal influence of theappraisal of self-agency on the tendency to repair (not confirming H1 ).Both the self-report and the behavioral measures suggested thatparticipants were equally motivated to repair goal-incongruent outcomescaused by themselves as those caused by circ*mstances. One could arguethat this finding is not a genuine null finding, but rests onmethodological shortcomings of Study 1. For instance, the reward valueof the repair responses may have been too high, causing the tendency torepair to be at ceiling, leaving little room for agency to influence thetendency to repair. This explanation is unlikely, however, given thewithin-subject variation in the amount of repair responses and thesignificant correlations between the difference in repair behavior onself- vs. circ*mstances-agency trials and the difference in feelings ofdisappointment on self- vs. circ*mstances-agency trials. Thesecorrelations suggest that our operationalization of agency was capableof producing meaningful within-subject differences in the tendency torepair. Our results thus provide a first indication that other variables(such as the intensity of disappointment) may be a better predictor ofthe tendency to repair than the appraisals of self- and/orcirc*mstances-agency.
In addition, our study contradicted several findings of previousresearch. First, we found that goal-incongruent events elicited bothstronger feelings of regret and stronger feelings of disappointment whenthey were caused by oneself than when they were caused by circ*mstances(confirming H2a, disconfirming H2b). Zeelenberg et al. (1998a)manipulated agency via scenarios and showed that goal-incongruent eventscaused by oneself elicited more regret but less disappointment thangoal-incongruent events caused by circ*mstances. Second, we found thatthe tendency to repair was related to the intensity of disappointmentbut not to the intensity of regret (disconfirming H3a and H3b). A studyby Zeelenberg et al. (1998b) showed the exact opposite pattern. In sum,Study 1 provided support for one of the five hypotheses (H2a) only.
Study 2
A first aim of Study 2 was to investigate further the relationbetween self-agency and the tendency to repair. Study 1 did not providesupport for the idea that the appraisal of self-agency increases thetendency to repair. However, self-agency and the tendency to repair maybe related in other ways. We explored the possibility that the appraisalof self-agency and the tendency to repair may be related in an indirectway, via the appraisal of coping potential. This idea builds on afunctional view of emotions and action tendencies (Camille et al. 2004;Lazarus 1991; Roseman et al. 1996; Woman 1975) which proposes thataction tendencies are responses to the environment that can beunderstood from their benefits to the organism. According to this view,the tendency to repair will be activated when it is possible andfunctional to repair, thus when coping potential is high. In daily life,self-agency and high coping potential often may co-occur:Goal-incongruent events caused by oneself typically may be easier tocope with (i.e., undo or repair) than goal-incongruent events caused byothers or circ*mstances. For example, when you end a relationship withsomeone (self-agency), you have a higher chance of fixing it again(coping potential is high) than when the other person ends it(other-agency, coping potential is low). High coping potential has beenshown to increase active problem-solving behaviors that could be seen asexpressions of the tendency to repair (Galinsky et al. 2003; Mikulincer1988, 1994; Wortman 1975). In Study 1, the natural co-occurrence betweenthe appraisal of self-agency, the appraisal of coping potential, and thetendency to repair may have been artificially pulled apart by carefullymatching the self-agency and circ*mstances-agency trials for copingpotential (see Table 1). In Study 2, we investigated the possibilitythat self-agency and the tendency to repair co-occur because both arerelated to coping potential, using the method of autobiographicalrecall.
A second aim of Study 2 was to investigate three possibleexplanations for the inconsistencies between our results and thoseobtained in previous studies concerning the relation between regret andthe tendency to repair. In these previous studies, participants recalledan event in which they felt regret or disappointment and indicated theextent to which they had the tendency to repair. The results of thesestudies showed that recalled regret was associated with a strongertendency to repair than other negative feelings, such as disappointment(Roseman et al. 1994; Zeelenberg et al. 1998c). A first difference isthat, in previous studies, the tendency to repair was often measuredusing items that implied self-agency. For instance, Roseman et al.(1994) used items such as "to what extent did you feel likecorrecting a mistake" (implying that the person made a mistake),"want to get a second chance" (implying that the person failedthe first time), and "want to improve your performance"(implying that the outcome was caused by the person's previousperformance). Given the close relation between regret and self-agency,the relation between regret and the tendency to repair may have beenoverestimated by measuring the tendency to repair via items that impliedself-agency. Zeelenberg et al. (1998b) used several items of Roseman etal. (1994) that implied self-agency, with the exception of one item: towhat extent did you want to undo the event?" Recalled regret wasassociated with a stronger tendency to undo the event than recalleddisappointment ([g.sub.s] = 0.40, a small to medium effect). Thisfinding does suggest that a person feeling regret is more motivated torepair a goal-incongruent outcome than a person feeling disappointment.In Study 2, we tried to replicate and extend the findings of Zeelenberget at. (1998b). We measured the tendency to repair with two sets ofitems: one set that referred to the appraisal of self-agency (e.g.,"to what extent did you want a second chance") and another setthat did not refer to the appraisal of self-agency (e.g. "to whatextent did you have the tendency to undo the event"). Similar toZeelenberg et al. (1998b), we compared the tendency to repair forparticipants who recalled an instance of regret and ones who recalled aninstance of disappointment. We hypothesized that there would be adifference between regret and disappointment for items referring toself-agency and a significantly smaller difference for items notreferring to self-agency (H4). A power analysis suggested that to obtaina significant effect for the items not referring to self-agency ([alpha]= .05, [beta] = 0.80), we needed a sample of at least 200 participants(Zeelenberg et al. 1998c).
A second difference is that previous studies compared instances ofregret and disappointment across participants, whereas we used anindividual differences approach (correlating feelings ofregret/disappointment with the tendency to repair). In Study 2, we usedboth approaches: As described above, we used the same approach asZeelenberg et al. (1998b). In addition, we used the individualdifferences approach of our own Study I and investigated whether theintensity of regret or the intensity of disappointment was a betterpredictor of the tendency to repair. To address this question, we askedall participants (both those who recalled an instance of regret andthose who recalled an instance of disappointment) to indicate theintensity of regret and disappointment. Study 1 suggested that theintensity of disappointment would bc a significant predictor of thetendency to repair (H5) but not the intensity of regret (H6).
A third difference between our Study 1 and previous studies is thatthe latter investigated naturally occurring regret and disappointment,whereas we used a carefully controlled experimental setting. In reallife, the circ*mstances giving rise to regret may be correlated with thecirc*mstances giving rise to the tendency to repair, but thesecirc*mstances may not have been present in Study I. For instance, asargued before, regret may follow from an appraisal of self-agency andthe tendency to repair may follow from an appraisal of coping potentialand both appraisals may often co-occur. The current Study 2 investigatednaturally occurring regret and disappointment to keep this featuresimilar to other studies. To investigate the hypothesized sets ofco-occurrences, we estimated the strengths of all possible direct andindirect relations between appraisals (self-agency and copingpotential), action tendencies (the tendency to repair), and feelings(regret and disappointment), using structural equation modeling (SEM).The investigated model is presented in Fig. 4. We are aware that SEMdoes not allow us to test causal relations among the variables.Therefore, all our hypotheses were framed in terms of "variable Xis related to/(statistically) predicts variable Y" and not in termsof causality. Because we were interested in predicting the values ofsome variables (i.e., the tendency to repair) and not others (i.e., theappraisals of self-agency and coping potential), the former were enteredas outcomes and the latter as predictors. Feelings of regret anddisappointment were sometimes entered as predictors and sometimes asoutcomes. We tested the idea that self-agency is not directly related tothe tendency to repair (H7), but that self-agency is related to copingpotential (H8), and that coping potential is related to the tendency torepair (H9). In addition, we tested whether the appraisal of self-agencyis positively related to feelings of regret (H10).
[FIGURE 4 OMITTED]
Finally, we examined the remaining relations between appraisals andfeelings. We investigated if we could replicate the relation betweenself-agency and disappointment obtained in Study 1 (Ell) and exploredthe relations between coping potential and regret (H12) and betweencoping potential and disappointment (H13).
Method
Participants
A total of 659 psychology students at Ghcnt University werecontacted via email to fill in an online questionnaire study on regretor disappointment in return for participation in a prize lottery. Aftera first call for responses and a reminder after 2 and 5 weeks, 114responses were obtained for the regret questionnaire (response rate34.55 %) and 116 for the disappointment questionnaire (response rate35.26 %). Four nonnative Dutch-speaking participants were excludedbecause their level of Dutch (as apparent from their written answers tofour open questions) was judged as insufficient by two independentraters. In total 114 regret respondents (21 men) and 112 disappointmentrespondents (22 men) remained in the study ([M.sub.age] = 18.95 years,SD = 3.67). All answers were collected and stored anonymously.
Procedure
Participants were asked to fill in a 15 min online questionnaire(administered via Limesurvey) about regret or disappointment as part ofa large-scale research project on emotions. Participants were randomlyassigned to the regret or disappointment questionnaire. On the firstpage of the questionnaire, participants were informed about the generalaim of the study and about data confidentiality. The questionnairecontained more items than needed for the present study. We brieflymention the content of the irrelevant items to sketch the measurementcontext of the items under study.
The questionnaire started with a number of demographic questions(sex, age, nationality, and native language). Subsequently, participantswere asked to take a few minutes to recall an event in their life inwhich they felt regret (in the regret condition) or disappointment (inthe disappointment condition). The instructions encouraged participantsto recall an event that was specific in time and space. Participantswrote down a short description of the recalled event and indicated theapproximate date of the event on a calendar. They also rated theintensity of regret (in the regret condition) or disappointment (in thedisappointment condition) at the time of the event as well as at thetime of recall on two scales ranging from 1 (completely not intense) to9 (very intense).
Subsequently, several appraisals, ruminative thoughts (e.g.,counterfactual thoughts), action tendencies, and behaviors weremeasured. Items were rated on scales ranging from 1 (not at all) to 9(yes completely), unless stated otherwise. In respective order, thefollowing appraisals were measured: novelty, expectancy, goal congruencefor yourself and for others, valence for yourself and for others,prevention focus, promotion focus, agency, coping potential, futureexpectancy, intrinsic controllability, norm violation, and uncertainty.The appraisal of self-agency was measured via two items ([alpha] = .65).One item asked participants to describe briefly the cause of the eventand to indicate the extent to which the event was a consequence of theirown behavior or choices (6). The other item asked participants to ratethe extent to which they had control over the occurrence of the event.The appraisal of coping potential was measured via four items ([alpha] =.77): Participants rated whether (a) they were able to change the eventafter its occurrence, (b) they were able to undo the event, (c) theywere able to improve the situation, and (d) their behavior determinedwhether the event could still change.
Action tendencies were measured by asking participants aboutparticular thoughts about actions, wishes about action outcomes, andaction tendencies that accompanied the feeling of regret anddisappointment. Items of the latter type were preceded by a shortintroductory paragraph: "The feeling of regret (disappointment) issometimes accompanied by the tendency to perform a particular behavior.Indicate to which extent you had the tendency to behave in a particularway" (the word "tendency" was underlined). In total,three types of action tendencies were measured: The tendency to repair(six items), the tendency to avoid (11 items), and the tendency to bepassive (four items). The tendencies to avoid and to be passive were notanalyzed in the current study. The tendency to repair was measured withtwo sets of items, some of which were adopted from previous studies(Roseman et al. 1994; Zeelenbcrg et al. 1998c). Items in the first setdid not involve a confound of the tendency to repair with self-agency([alpha] = .74), asking to which extent participants had the tendency to(a) change the situation, (b) improve or rectify the situation, and (c)undo the event. Items in the second set did involve a confound of thetendency to repair with self-agency ([alpha] = .62), asking to whichextent participants (a) thought about how they would handle thesituation differently next time, (b) wished they could turn back time,and (c) wanted a second chance. The latter items are confounded withself-agency because only if the participant's behavior influencedthe occurrence of the situation, does it make sense to think abouthandling the situation differently next time, turning back time, andwanting a second chance. For instance, if one believes that the eventwas caused by circ*mstances or others, turning back time is pointlessbecause the same event is very likely to occur again.
After completing the items on action tendencies, participants ratedtheir actual behavior in the situation: repairing (three items),avoidance (four items), passivity (three items), apologizing (one item),and aggression (one item). In the current study, we focused on actiontendencies rather than actual behavior to avoid the criticism that it isobvious that people only perform repair behavior when it is physicallypossible (i.e., in situations with high coping potential). Finally,participants rated the intensity of feelings of fear, sadness, anger,guilt, happiness, powerlessness, energy, restlessness, calmness,despair, frustration, shame, relief, and regret or disappointment (7).In the disappointment condition, participants were additionally asked toindicate whether the episode that they had recalled could be categorizedas disappointment over an outcome or in a person (8).
The model was fitted on the entire sample (collapsing recalledregret and disappointment) via structural equation modeling using theLavaan 0.4-12 package in R (Rossecl 2012). Three variables were treatedas latent variables: the appraisal of self-agency (two items), theappraisal of coping potential (four items), and the tendency to repair(three items, not confounded with self-agency). The intensities ofregret and disappointment were each measured with a single item. Thegoodness-of-fit was evaluated via four fit indexes: Chi-square(Chi-square divided by the degrees of freedom should be < 2), thecomparative fit index (CFI, should be > .95), the root-mean-squareerror of approximation (RMSEA, should be < .06), and the standardizedroot-mean-square residual (SRMR, should be < .09; Hu and Bentler1999). Standardized parameter estimates are reported.
Results
We first discuss the results for H4 and then turn to the modelfitting to test H5 to H13.
Hypothesis 4
Before testing Hypothesis 4, we ran an exploratory factor analysis(with varimax rotation) on the six repair items to investigate whetherthe confounded and non-confounded items loaded onto different factors.The factor analysis confirmed the hypothesized two-factor structure: Afirst factor with high loadings for the non-confounded items (.70 to.87) and low loadings for the confounded items (.06 to .26) and a secondfactor with high loadings for the confounded items (.69 to .81) and lowloadings for the non-confounded items (.05 to .23). This suggests thatthe confounded and non-confounded items reflected different constructs.
Next, we tested whether the difference between recalled regret anddisappointment with respect to the tendency to repair was stronger foritems that confounded self-agency and the tendency to repair than foritems that did not (H4). First, the confounded and non-confounded itemswere aggregated into two variables. Second, a mixed models ANOVA was runto test for an interaction between item type (confounded vs.non-confounded) and condition (recalled regret vs. recalleddisappointment). This interaction was highly significant.F(1,224)=15.63, p < .001, [eta].sub.p.sup.2] = .065. As expected,participants in the regret condition reported a stronger tendency torepair (M = 7.35, SD = 1.72) than participants in the disappointmentcondition (M = 6.26, SD = 2.04), t(224) = 4.34, p < .001, on itemsthat were confounded with self-agency. However, on items that were notconfounded with self-agency, participants in the regret conditionreported an equally strong tendency to repair (M = 5.94, SD = 2.15) thanparticipants in the disappointment condition (M = 6.03, SD = 2.20),t(224) = -0.31,p = .76. Independent samples t-tests showed that allconfounded items presented the expected difference. Recalled regret wasaccompanied by more thoughts on handling the situation differently nexttime (difference = 0.89, 0.95 = 0.20, 1.58; t(224) = 2.54, p = .012),with wanting to turn back time (difference = 1.68, C/95=1.04, 2.32;t(224) = 5.15, p < .001), and with wanting a second chance(difference = 0.70, 0.95 = 0.04, 1.36; 4224) = 2.08, p = .039) thanrecalled disappointment (see Table 3). There were no differences for anyof the non-confounded items, i.e., the tendency to change the situation(difference = -0.47, [CI.sub..95] = -1.15, 0.22; t(224) = 1.35, p =.18), the tendency to improve or rectify the situation (difference =-0.06, [CI.sub..95] = -0.76, 0.64; t(224) < 1), and the tendency toundo the event (difference = 0.26, [CI.sub..95] = -0.46, 0.98; t(224)< 1, see Table 3). For the SEM, we used the non-confounded itemsonly.
Table 3 Means (SDs), independent sample t-tests, and effect size(Hedges [g.sub.s]) for the tendency to repair items, split upinto those that include reference to self-agency (Confounded)and those that do not (Non-confounded)Item type Item (short Disappointment Regret t P description)Confounded Handle the 5.91(2.61) 6.80(2.65) 2.54 0.012 situation differently Want to turn 6.26(2.95) 7.94(1.83) 5.15 <0.001 back time Want a second 6.61(2.68) 7.31(2.37) 2.08 0.039 chanceNon-con Change the 6.10(2.67) 5.63(2.53) -1.35 0.18founded situation Improve or 5.96(2.61) 5.90(2.73) -0.17 0.86 rectify the situation Undo the 6.03(2.79) 6.29(2.68) 0.72 0.47 eventItem type [g.sub.s]Confounded 0.34 0.68 0.26Non-con 0.18founded 0.02 0.10
Hypotheses 5 to 13
Before fitting the model, multivariate normality for the data wasinspected by plotting the quantiles of the Mahalanobis transformed dataagainst the quantilcs of a chi-square distribution with 11 degrees offreedom. The data points showed a systematic deviation from the expecteddistribution. We therefore applied the Satorra-Bentler correction (Hu etal. 1992; Satorra and Bender 1994; scaling factor 1.028).
We first investigated whether the model (Fig. 4) reproduced thedata sufficiently well (i.e., whether the absolute fit of the model wasacceptable). Fit indexes indicated a good model fit,[x.sup.2](37)=61.50, p=.007; CFI = .956, RMSEA = .054; SRMR = .047.Subsequently, we inspected the estimates for each of the discussedrelations.
First, we examined the hypotheses pertaining to the relationsbetween the feelings (disappointment and regret) and the tendency torepair (H5 and H6). Replicating the results of Study 1, the intensity ofdisappointment was a significant predictor of the tendency to repair(confirming H5), z=3.37, p=.001, and the intensity of regret was not(confirming H6), z=1.38, p=.17. To investigate whether disappointmentpredicted the tendency to repair significantly better than reget, weinvestigated the fit of a constrained model that had the same structureas the model in Fig. 4, but with the additional constraint that theparameter of the relation between regret and the tendency to repair hadto be equal to the parameter of the relation between disappointment andthe tendency to repair. If the fit of the constrained model isstatistically lower than that of the unconstrained model (in which theseparameters are estimated separately and thus are allowed to differ), onecan conclude that the relations are statistically different. There was atrend toward a better fit for the unconstrained model, [XD](1)=3.29,p=.0696 (scaled difference test; Satorra 2000; Satorra and Bentler2010), suggesting that disappointment was a better predictor of thetendency to repair than regret.
Second, we examined the hypotheses pertaining to the relationsbetween the appraisals (self-agency and coping potential) and thetendency to repair (117 and 119), and the relation among theseappraisals (H8). As predicted, we found no direct relation between theappraisal of self-agency and the tendency to repair (confirming H7),z=-0.36, p=.72, but we did find a direct positive relation betweencoping potential and the tendency to repair (confirming H9), z=2.78,p=.005. The relation between the appraisals of self-agency and copingpotential was positive and significant (confirming H8), z=4.77,p<.001. The strength of the indirect relation between self-agency andthe tendency to repair was .16 (equaling the product of the two directrelations, i.e., .49 and .33). When fitting the same model without thearrow between coping potential and the tendency to repair, a significantrelation between self-agency and the tendency to repair did emerge([beta]=.19, z=2.00, p=.046). This confirms that the relation betweenself-agency and the tendency to repair can be explained by a relationbetween self-agency and coping potential and a relation between copingpotential and the tendency to repair.
Third, we examined the hypotheses pertaining to the relationbetween appraisals (self-agency and coping potential) and feelings(regret and disappointment; H10 to H13). The appraisal of self-agencywas directly related to regret (confirming HI 0 and replicating theresult of Study 1), z=3.39, p=.001, but unrelated to disappointment(disconfirming H11 and not replicating the result of Study 1), z=-1.07,p=.28. The appraisal of coping potential was not related to regret(H12), z=.619, p=.54, nor to disappointment (H13), z=1.35 p= .18.
Finally, we investigated whether the relation between regret andthe tendency to repair was significant when fitting the same modelwithout the direct relations between the appraisals (self-agency andcoping potential) and the tendency to repair. In this modeldisappointment again was a strong predictor of the tendency to repair([beta]=.27, z=3.63, p<.001), and the relation between regret and thetendency to repair was marginally significant ([beta]=.14, z=1.89,p=.059). This suggests that the relation between the feeling of regretand the tendency to repair can be explained by the relation betweenregret and the appraisal of self-agency, the relation betweenself-agency and coping potential, and the relation between copingpotential and the tendency to repair.
Discussion
Study 2 further examined the relations between the appraisal ofself-agency, the tendency to repair, and regret. It supported the ideathat the appraisal of self-agency and the tendency to repair co-occurbecause both are related to the appraisal of coping potential (H7 toH9). In addition, Study 2 provided novel insights on the relationbetween regret and the tendency to repair. In Study 1, we did notreplicate the relation between regret and the tendency to repair foundin previous studies (Roseman et al. 1994; Zeelenberg et al. 1998c). Weinvestigated whether the results of our study diverged from theliterature because of (a) different ways of measuring the tendency torepair (confounded vs. not confounded with self-agency), (b) differentdesigns (individual differences approach vs. comparison acrossindividuals), and (c) different settings (laboratory vs. real life).First, contrary to the findings of Zeelenberg et al. (1998c), we foundthat regret and disappointment differed only with regard to the tendencyto repair on items that confounded the tendency to repair withself-agency. In their study, the difference between regret anddisappointment on non-confounded items yielded an effect size of 0.40,whereas we observed a (maximum) effect size of 0.10. On the other hand,the difference between regret and disappointment for confounded itemsyielded an effect size of 0.26 to 0.60. The predominant use ofconfounded items may thus have contributed to the overestimation of therelation between regret and the tendency to repair.
Second, using an individual differences approach similar to Study1, we replicated the result that disappointment was more stronglyrelated to the tendency to repair than regret (confirming H5 and H6).Thus, although comparing regret and disappointment across individualsdoes not yield significant differences with regard to the tendency torepair (on the non-confounded items), individual differences in thetendency to repair were more strongly related to individual differencein disappointment than to individual differences in regret.
Third, we found support for the idea that the conditions for regret(i.e., the appraisal of self-agency) naturally co-occur with theconditions for the tendency to repair (i.e., the appraisal of copingpotential). This may explain why studies sampling from real-lifeexperiences show a different pattern than lab studies in which appraisalvariables are manipulated in isolation. The spurious relation betweenregret and the tendency to repair via self-agency and coping potentialexplains how regret may naturally co-occur with the tendency to repairwithout being a good predictor of the tendency to repair.
General Discussion
Our aim was to investigate the relation between the appraisal ofself-agency and the tendency to repair. In addition, we investigated howeach was related to regret and to other negative feelings. In Study 1,we experimentally manipulated agency (self vs. circ*mstances) andmeasured the tendency to repair as well as feelings of regret,disappointment, and anger. In Study 2, participants recalled an event inwhich they felt regret or disappointment and rated their appraisals andaction tendencies.
In the introduction we suggested that the appraisal of self-agencyand the tendency to repair could be (a) causally related, (b) temporallyrelated without a causal relation, or (c) semantically related withoutactually co-occurring. Neither of our studies provided support for acausal relation. In Study 1, a careful experimental manipulation ofa*gency (self vs. circ*mstances) did not lead to a difference in thetendency to repair (failing to confirm H I). In Study 2, there was nodirect relation between the appraisal of self-agency and the tendency torepair. Study 2 did provide support for a temporal or semantic relationbetween the appraisal of self-agency and the tendency to repair, via theappraisal of coping potential: Self-caused events tended to go togetherwith more coping potential (confirming H8) and coping potential waspositively related to the tendency to repair (confirming H9). BecauseStudy 2 relied on self-reports, we cannot determine whether theserelations reflect a real-world temporal co-occurrence or a semanticrelation that only exists in people's minds.
Our studies also examined the relation between the appraisal ofself-agency and the feeling of regret as well as other negativefeelings. Previous studies suggested that regret can be differentiatedfrom anger, disappointment, and fear, because it reflects the appraisalof self-agency. Our studies confirmed that regret is related to theappraisal of self-agency. In Study 1, participants indicated that theyfelt more regret in situations caused by themselves than in situationscaused by circ*mstances (confirming H2a) and in Study 2, there was apositive relation between the appraisal of self-agency and regret(confirming H10). We also found evidence for a relation betweenself-agency and disappointment, but only in Study 1. One possibleexplanation for this pattern of findings is that self-agency relates todisappointment in certain contexts (e.g., achievement in general or gameperformance specifically), but not in others (e.g., human relations).The relation between self-agency and regret may be more context-free.Another possibility is that this difference is due to other proceduraldifferences between Study 1 and 2. For instance, the time lag betweenemotional experience and measurement was very short in Study 1 (a coupleof minutes at most), but long in Study 2 (the median lag between eventand recall was 360 days). Other procedural differences that may haveplayed a role are study design (experimental in Study 1 vs.correlational in Study 2) and ecological validity (low in Study 1 vs.high in Study 2).
Finally, we investigated the relation between the tendency torepair and feelings of regret and disappointment. Neither of our studiesprovided support for the idea that the tendency to repair more oftenco-occurs with feelings of regret than with other negative feelings(H3a, H3b, H4, H5, and H6). It is important to note that the currentdata pattern does not imply that feelings of regret rarely co-occur withthe tendency to repair, nor that the tendency to repair uniquely relatesto disappointment (instead of uniquely to regret). In Study 2 (H4),participants who recalled an instance of regret and those who recalledan instance of disappointment reported an equally strong tendency torepair. In both Study 1 and 2, however, the intensity of disappointmentwas a better predictor of the tendency to repair than the intensity ofregret. We could explain the latter finding by comparing the appraisalpatterns that give rise to (a) the tendency to repair and (b) feelingslabeled as regret and disappointment. With regard to (a), we proposethat all events appraised as goal incongruent lead to the tendency torepair. In addition, we observed in our studies that this tendency isincreased when coping potential is appraised as high (H9), but not whenthe situation is appraised as caused by oneself (H1, H7). Thus, wepropose that the tendency to repair is elicited by an appraisal patternof goal incongruence plus high coping potential. With regard to (b), itis reasonable to assume that feelings of regret and disappointment botharise in situations appraised as goal incongruent. Our studies suggestthat regret also is related to the appraisal of self-agency (H2a. H10),but not to the appraisal of coping potential (H12), whereasdisappointment is not systematically related to either of theseappraisals (H2b, H11, H13). The latter fits nicely with the idea thatthe word disappointment is used in a broader range of goal-incongruentsituations than the word regret (Zeelenberg et al. 1998c). Taking (a)and (b) together, we suggest that the feeling of disappointment (relatedto an appraisal of goal incongruence) is a better predictor of thetendency to repair (related to an appraisal pattern of goal incongruenceplus high coping potential) than the feeling of regret (related to anappraisal pattern of goal incongruence plus self-agency) because regretis related to an appraisal variable that is irrelevant to the tendencyto repair (self-agency) and any variation in the feeling of regret dueto this variable will not be predictive of the tendency to repair.Future studies may examine whether feelings of guilt (related to anappraisal pattern of goal incongruence for others plus self-agency;Zeelenberg and Breugelmans 2008), can be used to predict the tendency torepair.
Our data were not supportive of the idea that each specificfeeling, such as regret and disappointment, reflects one unique actiontendency, as the feeling-is-for-doing account (Zeelenberg and Pieters2006) seems to suggest. The finding that both regret and disappointmentrelate to the same action tendency (to repair) seems more compatiblewith theories that argue against the existence of one-to-one relationsbetween feelings and action tendencies, such as contemporary appraisaltheories (see Moors 2014) and psychological constructivist views (e.g.,Russell 2009). Our studies did reveal recurrent patterns of relationsbetween appraisals and feelings (e.g., self-agency and regret) andbetween action tendencies and feelings (e.g., the tendency to repair anddisappointment). Thus, the present data pattern suggests thatregularities do exist, but that one should be careful with assumingstrict one-to-one relations between some of the components of emotions.
Our studies do not argue against the view described in theintroduction that regret is related to particular counterfactualthoughts, mental time travel, and vivid simulations of alternativeactions. The appraisal of self-agency may cause people to focus on theirown behavior and think about how things could have been different ifthey had made other choices. Similarly, regret may relate to thosecognitions that help a person avoid similar mistakes in the future(Baumeister et al. 2007; Zeclenberg et al. 2000). The experience ofregret may thus relate to qualitative behavioral changes in futurechoice situations (i.e., choosing those options that minimize regret).Support for this idea has been obtained in research showing that choicebehavior heavily depends on anticipated regret (Zeelenberg and Beattie1997; Zeclenberg ct al. 1996; Zeelenberg and Pieters 2004b).
Our studies have a number of limitations that could be addressed infuture research. First, the data of Studies I and 2 were collected in asample of Dutch-speaking psychology students. The limitations concerningthis sample are twofold. First, emotional experiences that arc labeledin Dutch as regret ("spijt") and disappointment("teleurstelling") may not be the same as those in English andother languages. A replication across other language groups, therefore,seems crucial. On the other hand, several of the original studies onregret and disappointment also used a Dutch sample (van Dijk andZeelenberg 2002; Zeelenberg et al. 1998c), which makes our studiescomparable to these studies at least. Second, although the program forfirst year psychology students at Ghent University does not contain anyintensive courses on emotions, one could argue that psychology studentsmore often think about their emotions than other students ornon-students. Therefore, any differences between emotions that are sosimilar as regret and disappointment may be inflated by the fact thatour participants elaborate more on their emotions than the averageperson (Tugade et al. 2004).
A second potential limitation is that the manipulation of agency inStudy I may have lacked the strength to evoke differences in thetendency to repair. One could argue that the participants in Study 1simply guessed which fruit would yield ten points and did not actuallyfeel like "agents" on the self-agency trials. In this respectit is important to note that (a) the manipulation check showed that ourmanipulation of agency was successful and did produce significantdifferences in feelings of regret, (b) Study 2 replicated the pattern ofresults of Study 1, refuting the idea that this pattern of findings islimited to laboratory and/or guessing situations, and (c) the televisionquiz example of the introduction suggests that even when people make aguess, they still can see themselves as the cause of an outcome andexperience regret when this outcome is negative. Future studies mayinvestigate whether other experimental procedures (e.g., in which theoccurrence of goal-congruent outcomes is governed by a set of rules thatparticipants discover during the experiment) can yield strongerappraisals of self-agency and may generate different findings.
A third limitation is that the structural equation modeling ofStudy 2 informs us about the existence of relations between variables,but not about the (causal) nature of these relations. In Study 1, we didfind support for a causal relation between the appraisal of self-agencyand the feeling of regret, but several questions remain about otherrelations examined in Study 2. For instance, it is unclear whether theappraisals of self-agency and coping potential merely co-occur orwhether they may be causally related. Study 2 also did not provideinformation about the (causal) nature of the relation between theappraisal of coping potential and the tendency to repair, but previousresearch has shown that the appraisal of coping potential increasesbehaviors that can be seen as manifestations of the tendency to repair(Galinsky et al. 2003; Mikulincer 1988, 1994; Wortman 1975).
Our studies hint at new avenues for research on the relationbetween the appraisal of self-agency and the tendency to repair. Thestudies cited in the introduction suggest that in a social context theremight be a causal relation between the appraisal of self-agency and thetendency to repair. These studies show that people put more effort inrepairing a goal-incongruent event for another person when they causedit themselves (Carlsmith and Gross 1969; de Hooge et al. 2011; Parkinsonand Illingworth 2009, but see Konecni 1972). The relation betweenself-agency and the tendency to repair may thus be moderated by theextent to which an event is negative for oneself or for others. Otherpotential moderators are the likability of the other person, thepresence of others, and the appraisal of intentionality (i.e., whetheror not the agent had the intention of causing the outcome). Futurestudies could also address the influence of the cost of repairing. InStudy 1, repairing was not very costly. It did not consume much energyor time. One could argue that in real life, repair behavior often doesrequire a lot of energy, and that participants would respond differentlyif repairing would be more costly. They might, for instance, be morereluctant to repair a negative outcome caused by circ*mstances.
To conclude, our studies suggest that an appraisal of self-agencyincreases feelings of regret but not the tendency to repair. Theyfurther suggest that feelings of disappointment are a better predictorof the tendency to repair than feelings of regret. Our studies goagainst the prevailing idea that a person who feels disappointment isless motivated to repair a negative outcome than a person who feelsregret.
Acknowledgments Preparation of this paper was supported by a Ph.D.fellowship of the Scientific Research Foundation, Flanders (FWO),Belgium, awarded to Evelien Bossuyt, FWO Research Project G.0223.13 andMethusalem Grant BOF09/0 I M00209 of Ghent University.
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(1.) There were no effects of incentive for participation (moneyvs. course credit) on any of the dependent measures: the number ofrepair responses on self- or circ*mstances-agency trials, ts < 0.15,ps > 0.88, the self-reported tendency to repair on self- orcirc*mstances-agency trials, ts < 0.95, ps > 0.35, and feelings ofregret and disappointment on self- or circ*mstances-agency trials, ts< 1.7, ps > 0.11.
(2.) In reality, there was no such algorithm. The programdetermined that 60 % of the trials yielded an outcome of ten points.
(3.) We only analyzed trials in which repairing was impossiblebecause only in those trials participants always had to decidethemselves when to stop repairing. For trials in which repairing waspossible, participants typically regained the ten points after a numberof button presses and the fix button subsequently disappeared.
(4.) Using other outlier criteria, no outlier criteria, or mediansinstead of means produced the same results. The same results were alsoobserved when we analyzed the number of trials in which participantsengaged in repair behavior ([M.sub.self] = 95.79, S[D.sub.self] = 10.15;[M.sub.self] = 96.51, S[D.sub.self] = 7.14; t(25) = 0.74, p = 0.46),instead of the number of repair responses.
(5.) All two tailed p-values.
(6.) Participants also indicated the extent to which the event wasa consequence of the behavior or choices of one or more other persons(other-agency) and a consequence of situational factors or circ*mstances(circ*mstances-agency). These items were not analyzed in the currentstudy.
(7.) At this time, participants in the regret/disappointmentcondition rated feelings of disappointment/regret only because theyalready rated feelings of regret/disappointment at the beginning of thequestionnaire.
(8.) Sixty-three participants were disappointed in an outcome and49 in a person. There were no significant differences between thesegroups with respect to the tendency to repair tendency to change thesituation, t(110) < 1, p = 0.39, improve or rectify the situation,t(110) < 1, p = 0.96, and undo the event, t(110) = 1.24, p = 0.16.
E. Bossuyt (*) * A. Moors * J. De Houwer
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Department ofExperimental Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, HenriDunantlaan 2, 9000 Gent, Belgium c-ma Evelien.Bossuyt@Ugent. be
A. Moors e-mail: [emailprotected]
J. De Houwer e-mail: [emailprotected]
A. Moots Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva,Campus Biotech 9, Chemin des Mines, CH--1202 Geneva, Switzerland
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