Choose wisely or you'll regret it: A investigation into choice on children's early experience of regret and relief by Daniel Weisberg

Choose wisely or you'll regret it: A investigation into choice on children's early experience of regret and relief Daniel Weisberg Dr. Sarah R. Beck “Counterfactual-Thinking-Based Emotions” Regret Decision Outcome Mentally travel back to moment decision was made, undo the decision and reconstruct alternate, better reality Regret Create a presentation on Friday when the talk is on Monday Incoherent presentation “I should have started the presentation earlier / I shouldn’t have agreed to do a talk” Determination Sadness (basic emotion) Regret Self-console Regret (complex emotion) Contemplate future “At least the people in the room are nice and will understand” In future, I will do work earlier” Less intense regret Learning mechanism Relief is less frequent - Relief involves responding to outcome, then comparing to ‘what could have been’ (counterfactual thinking) - After a positive or negative outcome - Compared to a more negative outcome - After a positive outcome, we are far less likely to think about alternate outcomes - Meaningful, worthwhile, valuable… TV game shows Deal or No Deal Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? The developmental literature - No positive evidence for children’s experience of relief (Guttentag & Ferrell, 2004; Amsel & Smalley, 2000) - Regret is experienced at 7 years, through a methodology of reading stories (G & F, 2004) – which character feels worse? - And playing games (A & S, 2000) – how do you feel? - We used the games task The Games Task – Regret trials win some stickers, could have won more – Relief trials win some stickers, could have won nothing Alternative box, alternative question, alternative score Initial box, initial question, initial score The developmental literature - No positive evidence for children’s experience of relief (Guttentag & Ferrell, 2004; Amsel & Smalley, 2000) - Regret is experienced at 7 years, through a methodology of reading stories (G & F, 2004) – which character feels worse? - And playing games (A & S, 2000) – how do you feel? - We used the games task - Weisberg & Beck (resubmitted to JECP). Children’s thinking about their own and others’ regret and relief - Regret for 5-6-year-olds, relief for 7-8-year-olds The Games Task – A Lag? – Three hypotheses for lag in development of relief: • Worthwhile, valuable or meaningful • • Regret: Won 2/3, could have won 8 – Difference of 6/5 stickers – 2/3 of a possible 10/11 Relief: Won 2/3, could have won 0 – Difference of 2/3 stickers – 2/3 of a possible 2/3 • Negative outcomes to events trigger thoughts about what could have been, i.e. counterfactual thinking • • German (1999); (Gleicher et al. 1990) Children only (adults tend to) think counterfactually after negative outcomes to events • Scale The Dreaded Scale… – Relief trials e.g., win 2/3, could have won 0 Initial score of 5 – alternative score cannot be higher – Regret trials e.g., win 2/3, could have won 8 – Initial score of 1 – alternative score cannot be lower Experiment 1 – 162 children, age 4-7 – From 1 lower-class and ethnically diverse school, and 1 middleclass school in Birmingham – Age 4-5, n = 55, m = 5;1, r = 4;8 – 5;7, 29 males – Age 5-6, n = 52, m = 6;2, r = 5;8 – 6;7, 27 males – Age 6-7, n = 55, m = 7;3, r = 6;8 – 7;8, 31 males – Gilovich, T., Wang, R.F., Regan, D. & Nishina, S. (2003). Regrets of action and inaction across cultures. J Cross Cult Psych, 34, 61-71 Experiment 1 Regret-Win trials (Win 2/3, could have won 8) Relief-Win trials (Win 2/3, could have lost 3) Regret-Lose trials (Lost 2/3, could have won 3) Relief-Lose trials (Lost 2/3, could have lost 8) Experiment 1 Summary – Again, positive evidence of children’s experience of relief – Baseline for experience of regret – 4-5? (W2,W8) – Even younger, or just an anomaly? – Evidence for parallel development of regret and relief – Notable exception is relief-lose trial (L2,L8) – not until at least 6-7 – But these ‘regret findings’ can be explained by children simply being frustrated that they chose the wrong box… – perhaps there is no counterfactual-based-emotional reaction (n.b. ≠ counterfactual thinking) I know it’s ‘Dev Group’ but… – We need to look at the adult literature. – One cannot experience regret or relief without self-blame (e.g., Byrne, 2002; Roese & Olson, 1994; Coricelli et al., 2005) – E.g., driving to work, stuck in traffic = anger (road rage?), not regret stuck in traffic but could have left earlier = regret blame the road works (and therefore the council) = less intense regret – If children were able to use the scale effectively and use the upwards arrow, we will know that this game tests for children’s experience of regret Experiment 2 – 136 children, age 5-8 – From 2 middle-class schools in Birmingham – Age 5-6, n = 44, m = 6;5, r = 5;11 – 6;10, 23 males – Age 6-7, n = 42, m = 7;6, r = 6;11 – 7;10, 30 males – Age 7-8, n = 50, m = 8;6, r = 7;11 – 8;10, 31 males Experiment 2 Three between-subject Conditions: Choice: Participant chooses one of two cards, participant sees what he / she could have chosen No Choice – Child: Participant rolls die which determines the card given, participant sees what could have been given had the dice landed differently No Choice – Experimenter: Experimenter rolls die which determines the card given, participant sees what could have been given had the dice landed differently Regret-Win trials (Win 2/3, could have won 8) Relief-Win trials (Win 2/3, could have lost 3) Regret-Lose trials (Lost 2/3, could have won 3) Relief-Lose trials (Lost 2/3, could have lost 8) N = 52 N = 17 N = 13 N = 14 Results 5-6-year-olds 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 .511 .514 .562 .486 .137 .001* .301 <.001* .033Δ .002* <.001* .002* <.001* .212 .438 .486 W2/3 W8 Regret-Win L2/3 W3 Regret-Lose W2/3 L3 Relief-Win Age 5-6 L2/3 L8 Relief-Lose N = 55 N = 15 N = 11 N = 16 6-7-year-olds 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 .442 .558 .350 .241 <.001* <.001* .001* .117 .010Δ .371 .518 .442 .037Δ <.001* <.001* <.001* W2/3 W8 Regret-Win L2/3 W3 Regret-Lose W2/3 L3 Relief-Win Age 6-7 L2/3 L8 Relief-Lose N = 18 N = 16 N = 16 7-8-year-olds 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 .558 .558 .015Δ .015Δ .120 .253 .253 .013Δ .047 <.001* <.001* <.001* W2/3 W8 Regret-Win L2/3 W3 Regret-Lose W2/3 L3 Relief-Win Age 7-8 L2/3 L8 Relief-Lose Summary of Graphs – When children had the choice, experienced regret from 5 (except for anomalous regret-win condition) – These children experienced relief after winning from 5 – But not after losing, a replicated finding, but approached significance for 7-8-year-olds – When children had no choice but rolled the die, the experience of regret was reduced for all 3 age groups – The 5-6-year-olds did not experience regret, but did experience relief after winning – The 6-7- and 7-8-year-olds experienced neither regret nor relief – When children watched the experimenter roll the die (no responsibility at all), regret and relief were completely eliminated. How likely were children to show counterfactual emotions – Univariate ANOVA Dependent: a score on counterfactual emotions (max. 4) Between Subjects: age (age 5-6, 6-7, 7-8) and condition (choice, no-choice-child and no-choice-experimenter) – Main effect of age, F(2, 127) = 4.22, p = .017 – Main effect of condition, F(2, 127) = 25.19, p = <.001 – Interaction of age and condition,F(4, 127) = 2.80, p = .029 – Age 5-6 – No difference between choice (M = 2.06) and no-choice-child (M = 2.08) t(28) = -.04, p = .967 – No difference between choice and no-choice-exp (M = 1.36) t(29) = 1.79, p = .084 – Age 6-7 – Sig difference between choice (M = 3.20) and no-choice-child (M = 1.73) t(24) = 3.53, p = .002 – Sig difference between choice and no-choice-exp (M = 1.31) t(29) = 5.79, p = <.001 – Age 7-8 – Sig difference between choice (M = 3.56) and no-choice-child (M = 2.19) t(32) = 4.71, p = <.001 – Sig difference between choice and no-choice-exp (M = 1.63) t(32) = 6.21, p = <.001 Post hoc Post hoc – No difference for any age group between no-choice-child and no-choice-experimenter – Age 5-6, p = .101 – Age 6-7, p = .396 – Age 7-8, p = .179 – The only age differences (i.e. increase in showing counterfactual emotions) were between: Age 5-6 (M = 2.06) and 6-7 (M = 3.20) on the choice condition t(30) = -3.37, p = .002 (no-choice-child p = .518, no-choice-exp p = .908) Age 5-6 (M = 2.06) and 7-8 (M = 3.56) on the choice condition t(22) = -5.05, p < .001 (no-choice-child p = .798, no-choice-exp p = .518) – No differences between 6-7- and 7-8-year-olds for: choice: p = .095, no-choice-child: p = .354, no-choice-exp: p = .445 Summary – Choice – vital for an experience of counterfactual emotions – Partial responsibility diminishes the experience of regret and relief, perhaps this is why we, as adults, find ways to not blame ourselves. – When there is no self responsibility, counterfactual emotions are not experienced. Activated counterfactual thinking is a different story. – These results effectively rule out the argument that children are just frustrated. Eliminating an experience of regret and relief based on a choice backs up our claim that these games test do indeed investigate regret and relief. – Prepare these results for Psych. Science as a very brief report – Suggestions on what could be done differently? Analyses? Thanks a lot… – – – – – – – – Wychall Primary School Langley Primary School Hollywood Primary School Acocks Green Primary School Hollywood Primary School Alston Primary School Short Heath Primary School Moor Green Primary School – Dr. Sarah Beck