Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to submit your manuscript to SPPS

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Leach, F. R.
Right arrow Articles by Plaks, J. E.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Leach, F. R.
Right arrow Articles by Plaks, J. E.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Regret for Errors of Commission and Omission in the Distant Term Versus Near Term: The Role of Level of Abstraction

Frederick R. Leach

Stanford University

Jason E. Plaks

University of Toronto, plaks{at}psych.utoronto.ca

Why are errors of omission regretted more than errors of commission in the distant past, whereas the reverse is true for the near past? The authors hypothesized that abstract versus concrete representation is a significant contributor to this effect. In Study 1, the authors assessed participants' regret for errors of commission versus omission occurring in the distant versus near past while measuring the level of abstraction at which participants spontaneously described the dilemma. As predicted, participants' greater regret for errors of omission (vs. commission) in the distant term (vs. near term) was mediated by level of abstraction. In Study 2, temporal distance, level of abstraction, and error type were all independently manipulated. As expected, participants reported more regret for an error of omission in the distant past when it was represented abstractly versus concretely. The authors discuss the role of mental abstraction in the phenomenology of binary decisions and error-related regret.

Key Words: regret • errors of commission and omission • level of abstraction

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 35, No. 2, 221-229 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167208327001
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Pers Soc Psychol BullHome page
J. E. Plaks, N. K. McNichols, and J. L. Fortune
Thoughts Versus Deeds: Distal and Proximal Intent in Lay Judgments of Moral Responsibility
Pers Soc Psychol Bull, December 1, 2009; 35(12): 1687 - 1701.
[Abstract] [PDF]