Better, Stronger, Faster: Self-Serving Judgment, Affect Regulation, and the Optimal Vigilance Hypothesis

Toward a General Framework of Biased Reasoning: Coherence-Based Reasoning

A considerable amount of experimental research has been devoted to uncovering biased forms of reasoning. Notwithstanding the richness and overall empirical soundness of the bias research, the field can be described as disjointed, incomplete, and undertheorized. In this article, we seek to address this disconnect by offering "coherence-based reasoning" as a parsimonious theoretical framework that explains a sizable number of important deviations from normative forms of reasoning. Represented in connectionist networks and processed through constraint-satisfaction processing, coherence-based reasoning serves as a ubiquitous, essential, and overwhelmingly adaptive apparatus in people's mental toolbox. This adaptive process, however, can readily be overrun by bias when the network is dominated by nodes or links that are incorrect, overweighted, or otherwise nonnormative. We apply this framework to explain a variety of well-established biased forms of reasoning, including confirmation bias, the halo effect, stereotype spillovers, hindsight bias, motivated reasoning, emotion-driven reasoning, ideological reasoning, and more.

Impact of resource scarcity on general categorization tendency: The moderating role of perceived mutability

Prior studies revealed varying effects of resource scarcity on individuals' general categorization tendency. However, little is known about when and why such differences occur. Based on the self-regulatory model of resource scarcity, we examine whether resource scarcity generates higher or lower general categorization tendency depending on the perceived mutability of the resource discrepancy. We conducted two online experiments to test the hypotheses. The results affirmed that when individuals consider the resource discrepancy to be mutable, they are more likely to seek abundance to compensate for resource scarcity, thus reducing their general categorization tendency. In contrast, perceiving the scarcity as immutable triggers the intention to restore a sense of control undermined by the scarcity, increasing individuals' general categorization tendency. Our findings provide insights into the downstream consequences of resource scarcity and offer significant managerial implications for coping strategies.

Frontostriatal Functional Connectivity Underlies Self-Enhancement During Social Evaluation

Self-enhancement, the tendency to view oneself positively, is a pervasive social motive widely investigated in the psychological sciences. Relatively little is known about the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying this motive, specifically in social-evaluative situations. To investigate whether positive emotion regulation circuitry, circuitry involved in modulating positive affect, relates to the self-enhancement motive in social contexts, we conducted an functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study in a healthy young adult sample. We hypothesized that self-enhancement indices (state and trait self-esteem) would relate to greater functional connectivity between right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (RVLPFC), a region implicated in emotion regulation, and the ventral striatum (VS), a region associated with reward-related affect, during a social feedback task. Following social evaluation, participants experienced stable or decreased state self-esteem. Results showed that stable state self-esteem from pre- to post-scan and higher trait self-esteem related to greater RVLPFC–VS connectivity during positive evaluation. Stable-state self-esteem also related to greater RVLPFC–VS connectivity during negative evaluation. Moreover, RVLPFC activation during all types of feedback processing and left VS activation during negative feedback processing was greater for participants with stable-state self-esteem. These findings implicate neurocognitive mechanisms underlying emotion regulation in the self-enhancement motive and highlight a pathway through which self-enhancement may restore feelings of self-worth during threatening situations.

Self-beneficial belief updating as a coping mechanism for stress-induced negative affect

Being confronted with social-evaluative stress elicits a physiological and a psychological stress response. This calls for regulatory processes to manage negative affect and maintain self-related optimistic beliefs. The aim of the current study was to investigate the affect-regulating potential of self-related updating of ability beliefs after exposure to social-evaluative stress, in comparison to non-social physical stress or no stress. We assessed self-related belief updating using trial-by-trial performance feedback and described the updating behavior in a mechanistic way using computational modeling. We found that social-evaluative stress was accompanied by an increase in cortisol and negative affect which was related to a positive shift in self-related belief updating. This self-beneficial belief updating, which was absent after physical stress or control, was associated with a better recovery from stress-induced negative affect. This indicates that enhanced integration of positive self-related feedback can act as a coping strategy to deal with social-evaluative stress.

A model of consumer life-satisfaction amidst the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence and policy implications

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically impacted the lives of consumers across the globe. What guidance can consumer researchers and policymakers provide consumers to elicit adaptive responses that contribute to their life-satisfaction under these adverse conditions? To this end, we develop and test an adaptive response model and demonstrate its impact on the life-satisfaction of the consumers experiencing the pandemic in Turkey. Our model suggests that amidst COVID-19, seeking emotional help triggers the positivity in people, which in turn increases life-satisfaction. Moreover, turning to religion to deal with the challenges of the pandemic leads to positivity and hope, which in turn positively affect life-satisfaction. Importantly, "escape" behaviors (such as excessive work or time spent in online shows/games) reduce positivity and hope in consumers, thus negatively impacting life-satisfaction. The paper discusses the conceptual and public policy implications of the results and offers recommendations for future research.

The route to improve the effectiveness of negative PSAs

To encourage people to behave in a more socially responsible or healthy way, many public service announcements (PSAs) dramatically illustrate the dire consequences of undesirable social or health behaviors. However, although informative, such negatively-framed PSAs can generate unintended consequences (e.g., a bad mood, low message acceptance). In this research, we investigated two approaches to improve the effectiveness of negatively-framed PSAs: (1) mood elevation and (2) self-affirmation. Using three studies with large samples of consumers, we found that adding mood-elevating or self-affirming elements to a negative PSA can be an effective way to enhance message acceptance. This is especially the case for recipients currently engaging (vs. not engaging) in the undesirable behaviors. Additionally, we designed mood elevation methods that can be implemented in PSAs in practice.

Moving Beyond the Relative Assessment of Implicit Biases: Navigating the Complexities of Absolute Measurement

A relative assessment of implicit biases is limited because it produces a combined summary evaluation of two attitudinal beliefs while concealing the biases driving this evaluation. Similar limitations occur for relative explicit measures. Here, we will discuss the benefits and weaknesses of using relative versus absolute (individual/separate) assessments of implicit and explicit attitudes. The Implicit Association Test (IAT) will be the focal implicit measure discussed, and we will present a new perspective challenging the evidence that the IAT can only be utilized to measure relative, not absolute, implicit attitudes. Modeling techniques (i.e., Quad models) that can determine the separate biases behind the relative summary evaluation will also be considered. Accurately utilizing absolute implicit bias scores will enable academia and industry to answer more complex research questions. For implicit social cognition to maintain and expand its usefulness, we encourage researchers to further test and refine the measurement of absolute implicit biases.

The Upside to Feeling Worse Than Average (WTA): A Conceptual Framework to Understand When, How, and for Whom WTA Beliefs Have Long-Term Benefits

Our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are shaped in critical ways by our beliefs about how we compare to other people. Prior research has predominately focused on the consequences of believing oneself to be better than average (BTA). Research on the consequences of worse-than-average (WTA) beliefs has been far more limited, focusing mostly on the downsides of WTA beliefs. In this paper, we argue for the systematic investigation of the possible long-term benefits of WTA beliefs in domains including motivation, task performance, and subjective well-being. We develop a conceptual framework for examining these possible benefits, we explore the usefulness of this framework to generate novel insights in an important psychological domain (skill learning), and we conclude with broader recommendations for research in other domains such as friendship formation, moral, and political decision making.

Pain perception during social interactions is modulated by self-related and moral contextual cues

Despite the growing interest on the effect of the social context on pain, whether and how different facets of interpersonal interactions modulate pain are still unclear. We tested whether personal (i.e., convenient for the self), moral (i.e., equitability of the transaction) or social (i.e., positive vs. negative feedback from others) valence of an interpersonal interaction differentially affects pain and the perceived fairness. Thirty-two healthy participants played the role of Receivers in a Dictator Game, where a player, the Dictator, determined how to divide a payoff between her/himself and the other player, the Receiver. We manipulated the payoff (pain vs. money), the personal valence (favorable vs. unfavorable offer to participants), the moral valence of the offer (from very iniquitous to equitable), and social valence of the Dictator (social acceptance vs. rejection). Moral and personal valence differentially modulated pain. Lower pain was elicited by iniquity, but also by favorable offers. Moreover, unfavorable offers in the economic game were rated as more unfair, whereas only very iniquitous offers elicited such ratings in the pain game, suggesting that participants valued when Dictators endured extra pain for their benefit. Together, we show that the valence of a social interaction at different levels can independently modulate pain and fairness perception.

Do People Devalue Sources of Threatening Health Feedback Particularly When Its Criteria Are Ambiguous and Its Consequences Enduring?

We tested the pre-registered hypotheses that receiving threatening health feedback would lead participants to disparage the health-assessment tool used to generate it and that quality of the assessment would moderate this effect. In Studies 1–3, undergraduate students completed a questionnaire including both unambiguous and ambiguous health-assessment items and were randomly assigned to receive either negative health feedback or no feedback. In Study 4, participants were randomly assigned to a control condition or to one of two experimental conditions that entailed receiving negative feedback about enduring or fleeting consequences of their health behaviors. Across all studies, contrary to our predictions, there were no significant effects of feedback on participants’ ratings of the accuracy of the assessment procedures. These findings have implications for understanding the specific conditions under which people disparage sources of threatening feedback in the domain of health.

Influence of vmPFC on dmPFC Predicts Valence-Guided Belief Formation

When updating beliefs about their future prospects, people tend to disregard bad news. By combining fMRI with computational and dynamic causal modeling, we identified neurocircuitry mechanisms underlying this optimism bias to test for valence-guided belief formation. In each trial of the fMRI task, participants (n = 24, 10 male) estimated the base rate (eBR) and their risks of experiencing negative future events, were confronted with the actual BR, and finally had the opportunity to update their initial self-related risk estimate. We demonstrated an optimism bias by revealing greater belief updates in response to good over bad news (i.e., learning that the actual BR is lower or higher than expected) while controlling for confounds (estimation error and personal relevance of the new information). Updating was favorable when the final belief about risks improved (or at least did not worsen) relative to the initial risk estimate. This valence of updating was encoded by the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) associated with the valuation of rewards. Within the updating circuit, the vmPFC filtered the incoming signal in a valence-dependent manner and influenced the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC). Both the valence-encoding activity in the vmPFC and its influence on the dmPFC predicted individual magnitudes of the optimism bias. Our results indicate that updating was biased by the motivation to maximize desirable beliefs, mediated by the influence of the valuation system on further cognitive processing. Therefore, although it provides the very basis for human reasoning, belief formation is essentially distorted to promote desired conclusions.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The question of whether human reasoning is biased by desires and goals is crucial for everyday social, professional, and economic decisions. How much our belief formation is influenced by what we want to believe is, however, still debated. Our study confirms that belief updates are indeed optimistically biased. Critically, the bias depends on the recruitment of the brain valuation system and the influence of this system on neural regions involved in reasoning. These neurocircuit interactions support the notion that the motivation to maximize pleasant beliefs reinforces those cognitive processes that are most likely to yield the desired conclusion.

It's not going to be that fun: negative experiences can add meaning to life

People seek to spend time in positive experiences, enjoying and savoring. Yet there is no escaping negative experiences, from the mundane (e.g. arguing) to the massive (e.g. death of a child). Might negative experiences confer a hidden benefit to well-being? We propose that they do, in the form of enhanced meaning in life. Research suggests that negative experiences can serve to boost meaning because they stimulate comprehension (understanding how the event fits into a broader narrative of the self, relationships, and the world), a known pillar of meaning in life. Findings on counterfactual thinking, reflecting on events' implications, and encompassing experiences into broad-based accounts of one's identity support the role of comprehension in contributing to life's meaning from unwanted, unwelcome experiences.

The relationship between self-esteem, sense of self-efficacy and level of illness acceptance, and healthful behaviours in patients with long-term illnesses (type II diabetes, Hashimoto’s disease)

Background

Hashimoto thyroiditis and type II diabetes are chronic diseases which have adverse consequences impacting emotional and cognitive functioning. Healthful behaviours focused on improvement of one’s health or on combating the illness play a key role in psychosocial functioning of a person, particularly one suffering from a long-term illness. The aim of the research was the measurement and analysis of healthful behaviours and the distinction of variables determining healthful behaviours. We attempted to examine the connection between adhering to healthful behaviours, and the level of illness acceptance, self-efficacy and self-esteem, in terms of exhibiting healthful behaviours in the above-mentioned groups of patients.

Participants and procedure

The study group consisted of 140 persons (70 persons with type II diabetes, 70 persons with Hashimoto’s disease). The following measurement techniques were used: the Health Behaviour Inventory by Z. Juczyński, the General Self-Efficacy Scale by R. Schwarzer and M. Jerusalem adapted for Polish by Z. Juczyński, the Acceptance of Illness Scale by B. J. Felton, T. A. Revenson and G. A. Hinrichsen, and the Self-Esteem Scale by M. Rosenberg.

Results

The results show that for the group of type II diabetes patients self-efficacy constitutes a statistically significant moderate positive predictor of psychological attitude and appropriate eating habits, and is a positive weak predictor of general healthful behaviour and prophylaxis at the tendency level. For Hashimoto’s sufferers the sense of self-efficacy is a statistically significant moderate predictor of healthful behaviours.

Conclusions

The study investigated significant relations between the level of illness acceptance, the sense of self-efficacy and self-esteem, and engagement in healthful behaviour. The sense of self-efficacy determines higher healthful practices in both research groups. The study allowed for a comparison of two groups of long-term illnesses sufferers – type II diabetes, and Hashimoto’s disease – in terms of adhering to healthful behaviours, and dependencies between selected psychological variables and patients’ preferred healthful behaviours.

Adulthood Social Class and Union Interest: A First Test of a Theoretical Model

A serial mediation model of union interest was tested. Based on theoretical notes provided by Mellor and Golay (in press), adulthood social class was positioned as a predictor of willingness to join a labor union, with success/failure attributions at work and willingness to share work goals positioned as intervening variables. Data from U.S. nonunion employees (N = 560) suggested full mediation after effects were adjusted for childhood social class. In sequence, adulthood social class predicted success/failure attributions at work, success/failure attributions at work predicted willingness to share work goals, and willingness to share work goals predicted willingness to join. Implications for socioeconomic status (SES) research and union expansion are discussed.

Parents of Children With Cancer: At-Risk or Resilient?

OBJECTIVE

To examine adjustment in parents of children with cancer using a design that minimizes focusing effects and allows for direct comparison with parents of healthy children.

METHOD

Parents of 305 children with cancer and a demographically similar sample of 231 parents of healthy children were evaluated using diagnostic interviews for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and questionnaire measures of posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) and psychological growth (PG), as well as measures of global psychological functioning.

RESULTS

Rates of current and lifetime PTSD in parents of children with cancer were low, and did not differ from comparison parents. Likewise, levels of PTSS were not significantly different from comparison parents, but differed as a function of time since diagnosis, with parents of children who were ≥ 5 years from diagnosis reporting significantly lower PTSS than comparison parents. PG was higher in parents of children with cancer than in comparison parents regardless of time since diagnosis.

CONCLUSION

Parents of children with cancer demonstrate resilience to this challenge.

Cognitive neuroscience of human counterfactual reasoning

Counterfactual reasoning is a hallmark of human thought, enabling the capacity to shift from perceiving the immediate environment to an alternative, imagined perspective. Mental representations of counterfactual possibilities (e.g., imagined past events or future outcomes not yet at hand) provide the basis for learning from past experience, enable planning and prediction, support creativity and insight, and give rise to emotions and social attributions (e.g., regret and blame). Yet remarkably little is known about the psychological and neural foundations of counterfactual reasoning. In this review, we survey recent findings from psychology and neuroscience indicating that counterfactual thought depends on an integrative network of systems for affective processing, mental simulation, and cognitive control. We review evidence to elucidate how these mechanisms are systematically altered through psychiatric illness and neurological disease. We propose that counterfactual thinking depends on the coordination of multiple information processing systems that together enable adaptive behavior and goal-directed decision making and make recommendations for the study of counterfactual inference in health, aging, and disease.

Hindsight Bias

Hindsight bias occurs when people feel that they "knew it all along," that is, when they believe that an event is more predictable after it becomes known than it was before it became known. Hindsight bias embodies any combination of three aspects: memory distortion, beliefs about events' objective likelihoods, or subjective beliefs about one's own prediction abilities. Hindsight bias stems from (a) cognitive inputs (people selectively recall information consistent with what they now know to be true and engage in sensemaking to impose meaning on their own knowledge), (b) metacognitive inputs (the ease with which a past outcome is understood may be misattributed to its assumed prior likelihood), and (c) motivational inputs (people have a need to see the world as orderly and predictable and to avoid being blamed for problems). Consequences of hindsight bias include myopic attention to a single causal understanding of the past (to the neglect of other reasonable explanations) as well as general overconfidence in the certainty of one's judgments. New technologies for visualizing and understanding data sets may have the unintended consequence of heightening hindsight bias, but an intervention that encourages people to consider alternative causal explanations for a given outcome can reduce hindsight bias.

Higher in status, (Even) better-than-average

In 5 studies (total N = 1357) conducted online using Amazon's MTurk the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and the better-than-average effect (BTAE) was tested. Across the studies subjective measures of SES were positively correlated with magnitude of BTAE. Effects of objective measures (income and education) were weaker and less consistent. Measures of childhood SES (both objective and subjective) were positively correlated with BTAE magnitude, though less strongly and less consistently than measures of current subjective SES. Meta-analysis revealed all measures of chronic SES (with the exception of education) were significantly correlated with BTAE. However, manipulations of SES in terms of subjective status (Study 2), power (Study 3), and dominance (Study 4) did not have strong effects on BTAE magnitude (d's ranging from −0.04 to −0.14). Taken together the results suggest that chronic, but not temporary, status may be linked with a stronger tendency to overestimate one's abilities and positive traits.

Criminal thinking styles of minors. Social and personality correlates

<b>Background</b><br /> This paper presents an attempt to determine the predictors of criminal thinking styles of minors, based on the theory of Glenn Walters. The construct which is the subject of this study, that is, criminal thinking, is treated as a factor that initiates and supports anti-social behaviour. It manifests itself in eight thinking styles (patterns): mollification, cut-off, entitlement, sentimentality, power orientation, cognitive indolence, discontinuity, and superoptimism.<br /> <br /> <b>Participants and procedure</b><br /> The study involved 114 people: 65 boys and 49 girls. The research group consisted of minors – boys and girls who were referred, by order of the court, to Diagnostic and Consultation Family Centres to receive a psychological opinion, the purpose of which was to determine the degree of demoralisation of the minor. The study was also attended by the guardians of minors. A criterion for including a minor in this study was committing an offence.<br /> <br /> <b>Results</b><br /> For each criminal thinking style, a forward stepwise regression analysis was conducted. Variables describing minors and mothers were included in the regression model. The aim of this approach is to identify the configuration of predictors of criminal thinking styles. In each of the models the coefficient of determination, R2, and  coefficients were calculated.<br /> <br /> <b>Conclusions</b><br /> The predictors of criminal thinking styles identified by the regression analysis show the complexity and heterogeneity of factors contributing to the emergence of these cognitive distortions. Predictors include both properties conditioning the psychosocial functioning of mothers and factors determining the personality of a minor (sense of control, low empathy, low self-esteem). There is a noticeable influence of factors attributable to the mothers – variables derived from the environment (demanding, rejecting, inconsistent attitude).

Timescale halo: average-speed targets elicit more positive and less negative attributions than slow or fast targets

Research on the timescale bias has found that observers perceive more capacity for mind in targets moving at an average speed, relative to slow or fast moving targets. The present research revisited the timescale bias as a type of halo effect, where normal-speed people elicit positive evaluations and abnormal-speed (slow and fast) people elicit negative evaluations. In two studies, participants viewed videos of people walking at a slow, average, or fast speed. We find evidence for a timescale halo effect: people walking at an average-speed were attributed more positive mental traits, but fewer negative mental traits, relative to slow or fast moving people. These effects held across both cognitive and emotional dimensions of mind and were mediated by overall positive/negative ratings of the person. These results suggest that, rather than eliciting greater perceptions of general mind, the timescale bias may reflect a generalized positivity toward average speed people relative to slow or fast moving people.

Uncovering the Multifaceted-Self in the Domain of Negative Traits

The multifaceted-self effect is the ascription of more traits to self than others. Consensus is that this effect occurs for positive, but not negative, traits. We propose that the effect also occurs for negative traits when they can be endorsed with low intensity (“I am a little bit lazy”), thereby circumventing self-protection concerns. In Experiment 1, the multifaceted-self effect occurred for positive, but not negative, traits on a high-intensity trait-endorsement measure. However, it occurred irrespective of trait valence on a low-intensity trait-endorsement measure. In Experiment 2, the multifaceted-self effect occurred for positive, but not negative, traits on a strong trait-endorsement measure. However, it occurred irrespective of trait valence on a diminuted trait-endorsement measure—a finding conceptually replicated in Experiment 3. In Experiment 4, participants spontaneously adopted diminutive terms (“a little bit”) when describing their negative traits. Individuals reconcile negative self-knowledge with self-protection concerns by expressing it in muted terms.

Asian-Indian parents' attributions about the causes of child behavior: a replication and extension with parents from Chennai, India

Using hypothetical vignettes, 152 parents of children 10-17 years old living in Chennai, India, made attributions about whether the origins of 2 positive and 2 negative behaviors performed by their own child or another child were due to the child's personality or the situation, or to parenting or nonparenting influences based on the frequency, intensity, and cross-situational consistency of the behavior. Parents attributed the positive behaviors of all children to the personality of the child and to parenting. Parents attributed negative behavior of their own children to situational influences and nonparenting effects, but attributed the negative behavior of other children to their personality and to parenting, a pattern that enhances and reinforces parent self-esteem. Results were discussed in terms of the self-serving bias and the actor-observer bias, cognitive distortions that protect and enhance parents' views of themselves and their children.

Social Sampling Explains Apparent Biases in Judgments of Social Environments

How people assess their social environments plays a central role in how they evaluate their life circumstances. Using a large probabilistic national sample, we investigated how accurately people estimate characteristics of the general population. For most characteristics, people seemed to underestimate the quality of others’ lives and showed apparent self-enhancement, but for some characteristics, they seemed to overestimate the quality of others’ lives and showed apparent self-depreciation. In addition, people who were worse off appeared to enhance their social position more than those who were better off. We demonstrated that these effects can be explained by a simple social-sampling model. According to the model, people infer how others are doing by sampling from their own immediate social environments. Interplay of these sampling processes and the specific structure of social environments leads to the apparent biases. The model predicts the empirical results better than alternative accounts and highlights the importance of considering environmental structure when studying human cognition.

Same-sex parenting and children's outcomes: A closer examination of the American psychological association's brief on lesbian and gay parenting

In 2005, the American Psychological Association (APA) issued an official brief on lesbian and gay parenting. This brief included the assertion: "Not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents" (p. 15). The present article closely examines this assertion and the 59 published studies cited by the APA to support it. Seven central questions address: (1) homogeneous sampling, (2) absence of comparison groups, (3) comparison group characteristics, (4) contradictory data, (5) the limited scope of children's outcomes studied, (6) paucity of long-term outcome data, and (7) lack of APA-urged statistical power. The conclusion is that strong assertions, including those made by the APA, were not empirically warranted. Recommendations for future research are offered.

Our Flaws Are More Human Than Yours

Four studies investigated whether people tend to see ingroup flaws as part of human nature (HN) to a greater degree than outgroup flaws. In Study 1, people preferentially ascribed high HN flaws to their ingroup relative to two outgroups. Study 2 demonstrated that flaws were rated higher on HN when attributed to the ingroup than when attributed to an outgroup, and no such difference occurred for positive traits. Study 3 replicated this humanizing ingroup flaws (HIF) effect and showed that it was (a) independent of desirability and (b) specific to the HN sense of humanness. Study 4 replicated the results of Study 3 and demonstrated that the HIF effect is amplified under ingroup identity threat. Together, these findings show that people humanize ingroup flaws and preferentially ascribe high HN flaws to the ingroup. These ingroup humanizing biases may serve a group-protective function by mitigating ingroup flaws as “only human.”

A role for the striatum in regret-related choice repetition

"Regret aversion" is proposed to explain a tendency to avoid future choices that have induced past regret. However, regret might also motivate us to repeat previous regret-related choices to make up for their previous selection, a behavior resembling "chasing" in the context of gambling. In the current experiment, we acquired fMRI brain data while participants placed monetary bets on repeated gambles. Behaviorally, participants showed a tendency to repeat previously regret-related choices (operationalized as those leading to an outcome worse than what might have been), an effect restricted to early runs of the task. At gamble outcome, we show a reduction in ventral striatal activity for regret-related relative to relief-related outcomes. Critically, this modulation was only seen when subjects were responsible for the bet choice. Activity in dorsal striatum was associated with an influence of previous regret on participants' subsequent choices, which is evident in increased activity when regret-related choices were repeated, relative to avoided, on the next trial. Our findings indicate that regret can lead to choice repetition as if seeking to make up for our mistakes and in so doing may lead to subsequent chasing behavior.