Regret is a decision-related emotion that arises when a chosen outcome is, or is believed to be, worse than a non-chosen alternative. The experience of regret has been linked to important real-life decisions such as health behaviors and financial decisions. The behavioral consequences of regret include both risk aversion and risk taking, decision avoidance, and non-optimal decision making. Moreover, enduring negative emotions like regret may have a negative impact on psychological and physical health. Thus, understanding how and why we experience regret and how regret influences choices and behaviors are important research questions. Previous research on regret has, however, to a large extent relied on younger participants and to date little is known about how and if the experience and anticipation of regret changes over the adult life-span.
This project uses both experimental and field studies to address how regret and the behavioral consequences of regret change with aging. Older adults are asked to make an increasing number of decisions and the older population is rapidly growing. Identifying how older adults? decision making differ from younger adults may help in designing information and decision aids tailored to older adults? abilities.
