Comparisons, mental models, and the action effect in judgments of regret

Decision avoidance and post-decision regret: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Decision Avoidance (DA) strategies allow people to forego or abandon effortful deliberation by postponing, bypassing, or delegating a decision. DA is thought to reduce regret, primarily by allowing decision makers to evade personal responsibility for potential negative outcomes. We tested this relation between DA and post-decision regret in a multilevel meta-analysis of 59 effect estimates coming from 13 papers. Five DA strategies were considered: status quo preservation, action omission, inaction inertia, choice delegation and choice deferral. Across all effects and DA strategies, there was a non-significant trend toward DA reducing regret (Hedges' g = -0.23, p = 0.063). When assessing individual strategies, we found that only status quo preservation reduced regret reliably (Hedges' g = -0.45, p = 0.006). The relationship between DA and regret was unclear for the other DA strategies. We tested a number of moderators for the effect. Only 'previous experience' (i.e., the outcome of a previous decision) influenced the relation between DA and regret reliably. That is, if participants choose the DA option when the same choice previously led to a negative outcome, regret is actually enhanced. Overall, there is clear evidence that status quo preservation can reduce regret, but it is currently unclear whether the same holds for other DA strategies.

Decreased arylesterase activity of paraoxonase-1 (PON-1) might be a common denominator of neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases

High-density lipoprotein (HDL)-bound paraoxonase-1 (PON-1) is mechanistically related to oxidative stress, inflammation and atherosclerosis and this multirole nature positions the enzyme as potential pathogenic player and candidate biomarker for many diseases. Our previous work suggests that decline in serum PON-1 activities, i.e. arylesterase and paraoxonase, might be associated with the occurrence of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) to late onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) or vascular dementia (VAD). The present study aimed to: (1) expand our previous findings in a larger and different population, including patients with LOAD-VAD mixed dementia (MD); (2) explore a possible association between PON-1 and multiple sclerosis (MS); (3) evaluate if cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) levels of PON-1 activities might be useful biomarkers for MS. We found that serum arylesterase, but not paraoxonase, levels of PON-1 were significantly lower in patients affected by MCI (n=232), VAD (n=65), LOAD (n=175), MD (n=88) as well as those with MS (n=104) as compared to healthy controls. Notably, the most pronounced decline in this activity was shown by MD (-18%, p<0.01) and MS (-23%, p<0.001), while the lowest changes were detected in the MCI group (11%, p<0.05). Only arylesterase was detectable in the CSF of MS patients and the levels were not significantly different from those detected in the other two neurological control groups. Overall our data suggest that a depressed arylesterase activity could be a common denominator of different neurological diseases which, independently of their peculiar ethiopathogenesis and pathophysiology, appear to be all characterized by an altered systemic redox balance.

A Conceptual Model for Eliciting Mental Models Using a Composite Methodology

Formed through experience, observation, and learning, mental models are used in decision making to understand, predict, and solve problems. The investigation and application of mental models research are a growing area of scholarly inquiry in human resource development (HRD) and adult education, yet debate about how to best elicit such knowing still persists. Therefore, exemplars for eliciting the mental models of individuals are a matter of importance. The goal of this article is to address some of the issues central to mental model research and the methodological problems faced by scholars and provide an approach to mental model elicitation that holds promise for attending to some of the issues raised in the article. Multi-method Mental Model Elicitation (MMME) overcomes some of the limitations of current approaches, thus helping to increase the utility of mental models research in the field of HRD.

"If only" counterfactual thoughts about exceptional actions

People create counterfactual alternatives that change an exceptional action to be like a usual one (e.g., "if he had placed his usual small bet he would have lost less"), as shown in Experiment 1. Experiments 2 and 3 eliminated and reversed this well-known effect: An exceptional action is instead changed to an exceptional alternative when it leads to a better outcome. Experiments 4 and 5 show that the reversal occurs whether or not the exceptional alternative is a justified action. The results indicate that the tendency to change an exceptional action to be like a usual one is guided by the optimality of the counterfactual outcome more than the exceptionality or justifiability of the action. The implications for theories of the counterfactual imagination are discussed.

Preferences for health outcomes associated with Group A Streptococcal disease and vaccination

BACKGROUND

A 26-valent Group A Streptococcus (GAS) vaccine candidate has been developed that may provide protection against pharyngitis, invasive disease and rheumatic fever. However, recommendations for the use of a new vaccine must be informed by a range of considerations, including parents' preferences for different relevant health outcomes. Our objectives were to: (1) describe parent preferences for GAS disease and vaccination using willingness-to-pay (WTP) and time trade-off (TTO) methods; and (2) understand how parents' implied WTP for a quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained might vary depending on the particular health outcome considered (e.g. averted GAS disease vs. vaccine adverse events).

METHODS

Telephone interviews were conducted with parents of children diagnosed with GAS pharyngitis at 2 pediatric practice sites in the Boston metropolitan area. WTP and TTO (trading parental longevity for child's health) questions for 2 vaccine and 4 disease-associated health states were asked using a randomly selected opening bid, followed by a 2nd bid and a final open-ended question about the amount willing to pay or trade. Descriptive analyses included medians and interquartile ranges for WTP and TTO estimates. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to assess differences in WTP/QALY values for vaccine adverse events vs. disease states.

RESULTS

Of 119 respondents, 100 (84%) and 96 (81%) provided a complete set of responses for WTP and TTO questions, respectively. The median WTP and discounted (at 3% per year) TTO values to avoid each health state were as follows: local reaction, $30, 0.12 days; systemic reaction, $50, 0.22 days; impetigo, $75, 1.25 days; strep throat, $75, 2.5 days; septic arthritis, $1,000, 6.6 days; and toxic shock syndrome, $3,000, 31.0 days. The median WTP/QALY was significantly higher for vaccine adverse events (approximately $60,000/QALY) compared to disease states ($18,000 to $36,000/QALY).

CONCLUSIONS

Parents strongly prefer to prevent GAS disease in children compared to vaccine adverse events. However, implied WTP/QALY ratios were higher for the prevention of vaccine adverse events. Regret for errors of commission vs. omission may differ and should be considered by vaccine policymakers.

The relationship between counterfactual thinking and emotional reactions to event outcomes: does one account fit all?

By enabling a comparison between what is and what might have been, counterfactual thoughts amplify our emotional responses to bad outcomes. Well-known demonstrations such as the action effect (the tendency to attribute most regret to a character whose actions brought about a bad outcome) and the temporal order effect (the tendency to undo the last in a series of events leading up to a bad outcome) are often explained in this way. An important difference between these effects is that outcomes are due to decisions in the action effect, whereas in the temporal order effect outcomes are achieved by chance. In Experiment 1, we showed that imposing time pressure leads to a significant reduction in the action but not in the temporal order effect. In Experiment 2, we found that asking participants to evaluate the protagonists ("who ought to feel worse?") led to a significant reduction in the temporal order but not in the action effect. The results suggest that the action and temporal order effects require different explanations and are consistent with other work that suggests that when decisions lead to bad outcomes a comparison of decision quality is an important determinant of the emotional response attributed to the protagonists. The stimulus materials used in our experiments may be downloaded from pbr.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental.

The functional theory of counterfactual thinking

Counterfactuals are thoughts about alternatives to past events, that is, thoughts of what might have been. This article provides an updated account of the functional theory of counterfactual thinking, suggesting that such thoughts are best explained in terms of their role in behavior regulation and performance improvement. The article reviews a wide range of cognitive experiments indicating that counterfactual thoughts may influence behavior by either of two routes: a content-specific pathway (which involves specific informational effects on behavioral intentions, which then influence behavior) and a content-neutral pathway (which involves indirect effects via affect, mind-sets, or motivation). The functional theory is particularly useful in organizing recent findings regarding counterfactual thinking and mental health. The article concludes by considering the connections to other theoretical conceptions, especially recent advances in goal cognition.

Semifactual: Byrne's account of even-if

Byrne's approach to the semifactual conditional captures the reasoning data. However, we argue that it does not account for the processes or principles by which people arrive at representations of even-if conditionals, upon which their reasoning is said to be based. Drawing upon recent work on the suppositional conditional we present such an account.