ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1667136
Can Anticipated Regret Promote Rationality? The Influence of Anticipated Regret on Risk Aversion and Choice Satisfaction
Provisionally accepted
- Hainan Normal University, Haikou, China
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Objective: This research examines the impact of anticipated regret on decision-making under risk, focusing specifically on its role in promoting risk aversion and enhancing choice satisfaction. Methods: Three studies were conducted to systematically investigate the effects of anticipated regret. In Study 1, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART) was used to manipulate the presence or absence of anticipated regret. Study 2 introduced individual differences in risk preference to examine how this trait interacts with anticipated regret in shaping risk-taking behavior. Study 3 added a time pressure condition to explore how anticipated regret functions under varying decision-making constraints. Results: Study 1 showed that anticipated regret significantly increased risk-averse behavior and improved choice satisfaction. In Study 2, both anticipated regret and individual risk preference influenced risk-taking, but only anticipated regret had a consistent positive effect on satisfaction. No significant interaction was found between the two variables. Study 3 revealed that participants were generally more risk-averse under time pressure, and the effect of anticipated regret on risk avoidance was attenuated in high-pressure conditions. However, its positive influence on satisfaction remained stable across conditions. Conclusion: Anticipated regret consistently influenced both risk-taking behavior and choice satisfaction across different individual dispositions and situational conditions, highlighting the stable and significant role of prospective emotions in decision-making under risk.
Keywords: anticipated regret, risk aversion, Choice satisfaction, Risk preference, Time pressure, balloon analogue risk task (BART)
Received: 16 Jul 2025; Accepted: 28 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Haiyan Liu, Hainan Normal University, Haikou, China
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