UNDERSTANDING POST?CHOICE ANTICIPATED EMOTIONS : THE ROLES OF UNCERTAINTY AND DELAY

Abstract

Making choices is part and parcel of daily life, but what determines how we feel after making a choice? The goal of this study was to understand the experience of anticipated happiness and anticipated regret after making a choice, but before the outcome of the chosen option is known. It considered the uncertainty conditions which may surround the choices we make, distinguishing between precisely defined and imprecisely defined uncertainty. As such, three different uncertainty conditions were considered: precise and low, imprecise and precise and high. In addition, it studied the role of a (known) time delay between making a choice and learning its outcome in the experience of anticipated happiness and anticipated regret. To this end, the main study operationalized the three uncertainty conditions through simple games of chance, and measured people’s anticipated emotions under different uncertainty and outcome delay conditions. It was believed that imprecise uncertainty characterizes many decisions reallife market place choices, and thus, a follow up study made use of a purchase scenario of choosing a vacation to study anticipated happiness and regret, which replicated the findings of the imprecise uncertainty condition of the main study. The most significant findings were that uncertainty conditions moderated the effect of outcome delay on anticipated happiness. In terms of anticipated regret, a longer outcome delay was associated with lower anticipated regret than a shorter one. These findings were discussed in terms of their contribution to the literature on anticipated emotions, including recognition of anticipated happiness, and the different effects of uncertainty and outcome delay. Directions for future research were given by juxtaposing the findings against existing literature to provide directions for future research. The applicability of the findings to marketers and gambling studies are also discussed.