When Does Action Elicit More Regret Than Inaction and Is Counterfactual Mutation the Mediator of This Effect

Norm theory's prediction that actions are more mutable than inactions and, as a consequence, will elicit more regret following a negative outcome was tested in two experiments. Action and inaction mutation frequencies were assessed in a design where both types of behaviors were presented together and when information about only one type was described. In Experiment 1, Kahneman and Tversky's (1982a) original scenario, where the action or inaction was instrumentally related to the negative outcome, was employed. More intense regret was obtained for the acting target than the nonacting one, but only when the information about both targets was presented simultaneously and not when either was presented alone. More importantly, action was not more frequently mutated than inaction and what was mutated was uncorrelated with the regret ratings. Instead, the active target's regret was correlated with the perceived wisdom of the nonacting target's behavioral choice when both targets were presented together and could be compared. In Experiment 2, where the action and inaction were not instrumentally related to the negative outcome, no emotional amplification was observed and inaction was targeted for mutation more often than was action. Discussion focuses on an alternative mechanism, besides mutability, that can account for differential emotion elicitation and on specifying the conditions under which the emotion effect will or will not occur.