This dissertation contributes to a growing literature on affective forecasting showing that people are often inaccurate when predicting their future emotions, particularly the emotion of regret (Wilson & Gilbert, 2003). In the current program of research I explored the differences in the anticipated and experienced regret of participants who worked (or imagined working) either alone or as part of a group. In Experiment One I demonstrated that participants anticipated more regret from failing a task when alone than from failing a task that when working as part of a group. I speculated that this occurs because working with a group allows one to blame others for a failure, thus reducing one’s own regret. In Experiment Two I demonstrated that although participants anticipated more regret from an individual relative to a group failure, the regret they actually experienced is equivalent in these conditions. I hypothesised that this is because the psychological immune system (Gilbert, Pinel, Wilson, Blumberg, & Wheatley, 1998) works hard to reduce the regret of the participants who worked alone to levels matching that of the participants who worked in groups. I also demonstrated that this psychological immune system takes time to reduce regret differences in levels of regret were found between participants in the group and alone conditions when participants reported their regret immediately, but when regret was reported after a delay, these differences were no longer found. In Experiment Three I ruled out a potential confound by demonstrating that the differences between Experiments One and Two were not due to participants thinking of different time frames while reporting their regret. In Experiments Four and Five I extended my program of research by investigating whether the anticipated and experienced regret that is caused by failing a task varies depending on whether one is working with in-group or out-group partners. I found that while participants anticipate more regret from failing a task with an in-group compared to an out-group partner, the regret they ultimately experience is not affected by the group status of their partner. Implications and future directions are discussed. / Thesis (Ph.D, Psychology) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-10 15:45:04.097

This dissertation is concerned with the role of regret aversion in decision making. Specifically, it examines how regret aversion influences decision process, choice, and post-decisional behaviors and feelings. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the past empirical findings and theorizing on regret aversion. Chapter 2 examines whether regret aversion leads to a stronger or weaker preference for so-called reason-based choices (cf., Shafir, Simonson, & Tversky, 1993), or options that are more easily justifiable. Specifically, four experiments test whether four well-known reason-based choice effects are amplified or attenuated when regret is made salient. These effects are the asymmetric dominance effect, the compromise effect, the select/reject effect, and the most important attribute effect. Chapter 3 reports on five experiments that examine whether regret aversion leads decision makers to engage in more careful decision processing as suggested by Janis and Mann (1977). It extends the study of regret aversion from choice behavior to decision processing. Chapter 4 studies the effects of regret aversion in repeated decisions. Specifically, it examines experimentally how decision makers handle the trade off between seeking feedback on foregone options that may facilitate learning and better decision making in future decisions, and avoiding feedback on foregone options as such feedback may cause feelings of regret. Chapter 5 summarizes the contributions of this dissertation and concludes.

abstract: In the present research, two interventions were developed to increase sun protection in young women. The purpose of the study was to compare the effects of intervention content eliciting strong emotional responses to visual images depicting photoaging and skin cancer, specifically fear and disgust, coupled with a message of self-efficacy and benefits of sun protection (the F intervention) with an intervention that did not contain an emotional arousal component (the E intervention). Further, these two intervention conditions were compared to a control condition that contained an emotional arousal component that elicited emotion unrelated to the threat of skin cancer or photoaging (the C control condition). A longitudinal study design was employed, to examine the effects of condition immediately following the intervention, and to examine sun protection behavior 2 weeks after the intervention. A total of 352 undergraduate women at Arizona State University were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions (F n = 148, E n = 73, C n = 131). Several psychosocial constructs, including benefits of sun protection, susceptibility to and severity of photoaging and sun exposure, self-efficacy beliefs of making sun protection a daily habit, and barriers to sun protection were measured before and immediately following the intervention. Sun protection behavior was measured two weeks later. Those in the full intervention reported higher self-efficacy and severity of photoaging at immediate posttest than those in the efficacy only and control conditions. The fit of several path models was tested to explore underlying mechanisms by which the intervention affected sun protection behavior. Experienced emotion, specifically fear and disgust, predicted susceptibility and severity, which in turn predicted anticipated regret of failing to use sun protection. The relationship between this overall threat component (experienced emotion, susceptibility, severity, and anticipated regret) and intentions to engage in sun protection behavior was mediated by benefits. The present research provided evidence of the effectiveness of threat specific emotional arousal coupled with a self-efficacy and benefits message in interventions to increase sun protection. Further, this research provided additional support for the inclusion of both experienced and anticipated emotion in models of health behavior. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2011

This thesis consists of three independent papers. They are put in reverse chronological order according to when they were initiated. The first paper, which is a joint work with Özgür Evren, extends the standard rational choice framework with the option to postpone the act of selecting an alternative. In that paper, we propose an axiomatic model of choice over risky prospects that restricts the classical rationality axioms solely to those instances in which the decision maker does not defer. The cardinal approach we follow allows us to identify the preference relation of the decision maker over lotteries, even if the choice data is very scarce due to deferral. Moreover, we also derive the value of deferring choice from a given set of options, which turns out to be an affine utility function over choice sets. At each choice situation, the decision maker compares the utility of each available alternative with that of deferral so as to decide on opting for an alternative immediately. The second paper is a model of status quo bias with choice avoidance. It describes the choice behavior of an otherwise standard decision maker whose choices are affected by the presence of a status quo alternative. The status quo emerges as a temporary choice, which may be reversed upon arrival of new (introspective or objective) information, or upon finding new alternatives. The third paper considers the network formation problem from a matching perspective. In that paper, agents want to link with each other and each has preferences over the subsets of others. We consider various solution concepts regarding the stability of a matching between the agents, establish relations between these concepts under several preference restrictions, and provide sufficient conditions for these solutions to be nonempty. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögskolan i Stockholm, 2011