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The warmth of our regrets: managing regret through physiological regulation and consumption

Version 2 2024-06-04, 10:42
Version 1 2017-03-07, 15:55
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-04, 10:42 authored by Jeffrey RotmanJeffrey Rotman, SHM Lee, AW Perkins
This research suggests that experiencing action regret induces a change in psychological and physical warmth, motivating individuals to ameliorate that change via interaction with objects that are perceived to be physically or psychologically opposite in temperature. Experiment 1 revealed individuals experiencing action regret felt more self-conscious emotions, and subsequently preferred cold (versus hot) drinks. Experiment 2 replicated this effect and ruled out arousal as a possible alternative explanation. Experiment 3 furthered this link by demonstrating that those feeling more self-conscious emotions felt warmer and subsequently preferred cold (versus hot) drinks. Finally, experiment 4 found that advertisements manipulated for temperature (e.g., cold climate) mitigated the psychological effects of action regret. We interpret the results of these four studies within the emerging field of embodied cognition, which argues that our understanding of emotional concepts is grounded in, and can be influenced by, physical experiences.

History

Journal

Journal of consumer psychology

Volume

27

Pagination

160-170

Location

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

ISSN

1057-7408

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal, C Journal article

Copyright notice

2016, Society for Consumer Psychology

Issue

2

Publisher

Elsevier