The Influence of Counterfactual Thinking and Regret on Ethical Decision Making

Abstract

The authors explore the influence of counterfactual thoughts in triggering the emotions of regret and disappointment in ethical decision making. Counterfactual thinking involves examining possible outcomes to events and is often explored in what-if scenarios. Findings support that subjects were able to transfer regret (but not disappointment) associated with an actor's unethical behavior in one scenario to another actor's decision to make an unethical choice in a second, different scenario, with the manipulation impacting subjects’ ethical judgment and their behavioral intention (expressed tendency to act ethically). In addition, ethical judgment was found to mediate the influence of the anticipated negative emotion of regret on subjects’ intention to perform the unethical behavior of the actor portrayed in the scenario. These findings are used to offer suggestions to educators to influence student ethical decisions as well as to offer potential avenues for future research.

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