On bad decisions and deciding badly: When intention–behavior inconsistency is regrettable

Abstract

Independent of the valence of the decision outcomes, the quality of the decision process influences the experience of regret, a longitudinal study and two experiments, involving a total of close to 2000 participants, provide systematic evidence that intention–behavior inconsistency, as a prime indicator of a failed decision process, is regret inducing. Moreover, this inconsistency effect is specific to the emotion of regret, mediated by the judged quality of the decision process, independent of the valence of the decision outcomes, and, importantly, disappears when the quality of the decision process is high because inconsistency is justified. This provides new insights into regret’s role in the action sequence, and has implications for decision justification theory, and action/inaction research.