The tries of the scientists to explain what influences people’s decision-making are incalculable. It is indeed hard to define what makes people take certain decisions even if they are absolutely incorrect. The article “The Role of Anticipated Regret in Escalation of Commitment” by Kin Fai Ellick Wong and Jessica Y. Y. Kwong gives an adequate explanation of the phenomenon of decision-making. The authors of the article believe that decision-making is strongly influenced by regret which people usually anticipate when having doubts while making their choice. The article under consideration contains interesting information about anticipated regret and escalation commitment, as well as traces the influence of the former on the latter and the effect of the anticipated regret on the decision-making.
The article begins with the discussion of decision making which gradually overflows into the views of different scholars on the regret theory. The description of regret as an emotion is projected to a real-life situation; the authors explain that “one may feel regret after investing in Stock A and finding out that investing in Stock B would have resulted in a much larger profit” (Wong and Kwong, p. 545). The anticipated regret, in its turn, is connected with the fear to make a wrong choice. According to the article, the regret theory claims that the majority of people are “regret averse” (Wong and Kwong, p. 546), which means that they prefer not to choose the options which will make them regret in the future. The authors of the article call such preference to the option a commitment to it; they state that the commitment increases if a person has an anticipated regret about it.
Furthermore, the authors proceed to the discussion of the escalation commitment. They define the escalation commitment as “the tendency to invest further in the losing course of action, particularly when one is personally responsible for the initiation of the failing investment” (Wong and Kwong, p. 546). The article explains this phenomenon by means of the correlation between the anticipated regrets about persistence and about withdrawal; it is stated in the article that escalated commitment is more likely to take place in case of the increase of the anticipated regret about withdrawal and decrease of the anticipated regret about persistence. Wong and Kwong re-iterate that personal responsibility is one of the most important factors at this.
Finally, the article presents research on the influence of the anticipated regret on the escalation commitment. This research is based on two main hypotheses. According to the first one, the escalation of commitment is stronger when a person who experiences it is personally responsible for the original decision; according to the second one, escalation commitment “is positively related to anticipated regret about withdrawal and is negatively related to anticipated regret about persistence” (Wong and Kwong, p. 547). The participants of the research are teachers and undergraduate students. The research has shown that the authors’ hypotheses were correct and that anticipated regret does have an influence on decision making.
In sum, the article under consideration presents thorough research dedicated to decision-making and the influence of the anticipated regret on it. It does not contradict the findings of the scholars who carried out the research on the same topic and only gives additional evidence to some of the assumptions of the regret theory.
References
Wong, Kin F.E. and Kwong, Jessica Y.Y. ‘The Role of Anticipated Regret in Escalation of Commitment.” Journal of Applied Psychology 92.2 (2007): 545-554.