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DOI: 10.1177/0146167208327001

2009 35: 221Pers Soc Psychol BullFrederick R. Leach and Jason E. Plaks

Abstractiongret for Errors of Commission and Omission in the Distant Term Versus Near Term: The Role of Le

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221

Regret for Errors of Commission and

Omission in the Distant Term Versus NearTerm: The Role of Level of Abstraction

Frederick R. Leach

Stanford University

Jason E. Plaks

University of Toronto

involves the possibility of making an error of commis-sion (incorrectly acting) or an error of omission (incor-rectly refraining from acting). A question of boththeoretical and practical importance is whether one typeof error tends to evoke greater regret. Two Englishidioms suggest contrasting views: Better safe thansorry implies that an error of commission is graverthan an error of omission, but Nothing ventured,nothing gained implies the opposite.

Kahneman and Tversky (1982) investigated thisquestion by providing participants with a scenarioinvolving switching versus not switching stocks that

either declined or did not decline in value. Theyobtained striking results: 92% of their participantsreported that a person making an error of commissionwould feel worse than a person making an error ofomission, ceteris parabis (cited in Gilovich & Medvec,1995). Subsequent studies, including those by Landman(1987) and Gleicher et al. (1990), found similar pat-terns. According to Kahneman and Miller (1986),action produces more intense regret than inactionbecause action is less common and thus more salient.

Authors Note: Authors are listed alphabetically. Each contributedequally to this work. Please address correspondence to Jason E. Plaks,4003 Sidney Smith Hall, Department of Psychology, University ofToronto, 100 St. George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 3G3; e-mail:[email protected].

PSPB, Vol. 35 No. 2, February 2009 221-229DOI: 10.1177/0146167208327001 2009 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Why are errors of omission regretted more than errorsof commission in the distant past, whereas the reverse istrue for the near past? The authors hypothesized thatabstract versus concrete representation is a significantcontributor to this effect. In Study 1, the authorsassessed participants regret for errors of commissionversus omission occurring in the distant versus near pastwhile measuring the level of abstraction at which par-ticipants spontaneously described the dilemma. As pre-dicted, participants greater regret for errors of omission(vs. commission) in the distant term (vs. near term) wasmediated by level of abstraction. In Study 2, temporal

distance, level of abstraction, and error type were allindependently manipulated. As expected, participantsreported more regret for an error of omission in the dis-tant past when it was represented abstractly versus con-cretely. The authors discuss the role of mentalabstraction in the phenomenology of binary decisionsand error-related regret.

Keywords: regret; errors of commission and omission; levelof abstraction

Decisions between the alternatives of action and

inaction are pervasive in life, appearing in a widerange of decision-making contexts. Examples includefinancial decisions (e.g., should I buy the promising, butrisky, new stock?), medical decisions (e.g., should I trythe new, but unproven, treatment?), and interpersonaldilemmas (e.g., should I ask that attractive stranger outon a date?). Despite the widely differing content of suchdecisions, they share a common structure in that each

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THE TEMPORAL PATTERN OF REGRET

Later studies, however, uncovered a more complexphenomenon. When Gilovich and Medvec (1994) askedparticipants to name the single mistake they regrettedthe most in their lives, participants reported errors of

omission more frequently (see also Hattiangadi,Medvec, & Gilovich, 1995). Gilovich and Medvec rea-soned that (a) when asked to name their greatest regret,people tend to recall events in the distantpast, and (b) inthe distant past, errors of omission are more regrettablethan errors of commission (see also Gilovich & Medvec,1995). In other studies, Gilovich and Medvec (1994,Studies 3 and 4) directly compared the near term versusdistant term by asking participants to indicate whetheran actor or a nonactor who both obtained the same neg-ative outcome would experience more regret immedi-ately versus in the long run. A strong majority (76%)indicated that the actor would experience greater regret

in the short term, but a solid majority (63%) felt thatthe nonactor would experience greater regret in the longterm (for similar findings, see Feldman, Miyamoto, &Loftus, 1999).1

Additional studies examined mediating mechanisms.Gilovich, Medvec, and Chen (1995), for example,found that people exhibited more cognitive dissonancereduction for actions than for inactions while at thesame time engaging in more counterproductive rumina-tion over inactions compared to actions (see alsoSavitsky, Medvec, & Gilovich, 1997). In a related vein,Kahneman (1995) argued that regret for near-termevents is qualitatively different from regret for distant-

term events in that the former is hotter and the lattermore wistful. According to this logic, differences inregret between errors of commission versus omissionoccur because errors of commission are more typicallylinked to hot regret while errors of omission are moretypically linked to wistful regret (Gilovich, Medvec, &Kahneman, 1998).

THE TEMPORAL PATTERN OF ABSTRACTION

As helpful as these insights have been, we suggestthat there is a critical aspect of the psychology of regretthat has been largely overlooked: namely, howabstractly versus concretely errors are represented in thedistant versus near term. We argue that this differencein mental representation plays a key role in the psy-chology of distant-term versus near-term regret.

Trope and Liberman (2003) proposed construal leveltheory (CLT), which asserts that mental representations

of distant events (future and past) are more abstractthan those of near events (Liberman & Trope, 1998;Trope & Liberman, 2000). Abstract representation typ-ically refers to thinking of not only the act itself but itspurpose and/or consequences (Bar-Anan, Liberman, &Trope, 2006; Trope & Liberman, 2003). To illustrate

what differences in abstraction denote, consider aperson ringing a doorbell. This persons behavior can bedescribed either abstractly as calling on a friend orconcretely as pushing a button. Vallacher andWegners (1989) Behavioral Identification Form is usedto measure chronic individual differences in the ten-dency to invoke high-level versus low-level repre-sentations. Construal level may also be experimentallymanipulated in a variety of ways, including asking par-ticipants to describehow an event occurred versus whyit occurred (e.g., Freitas, Gollwitzer, & Trope, 2004).

Much of this research has found that when peoplethink about the distant term, they tend to select higher

level descriptions (e.g., calling on a friend), but whenthey consider the same event in the near term, they pre-fer lower level descriptions (e.g., pushing a button) (e.g.,Trope & Liberman, 2000). According to recentaccounts (e.g., Fujita, Henderson, et al., 2006; Trope &Liberman, 2003), details about distant future events areoften knowable only as the time draws closer. Thus, it issensible that people would come to associate distantfuture events with abstract concepts (e.g., superordinategoals, broad summaries of the situation) and only turnto concrete considerations (e.g., subordinate goals,specifics of the situation) when the events imminencefocuses attention on successful execution. This associa-

tion between distant events and abstract representationversus near-term events and concrete representationhas been shown to affect cognition and motivation ina host of everyday domains, including choice behav-ior (Liberman & Trope, 1998), gambling preferences(Sagristano, Trope, & Liberman, 2002), self-control(Fujita, Trope, et al., 2006), and judgments of similarity(Day & Bartels, 2004, 2006).2 However, no studies, toour knowledge, have examined the effect of construallevel on error-related regret.

DO ERRORS OF COMMISSION AND

OMISSION DIFFER IN ABSTRACTION?

Several studies lend indirect evidence that errors ofomission are mentally represented more abstractly thanerrors of commission. In one study, Gilovich andMedvec (1995) asked participants to rate how differenttheir lives would be if they could change their greatesterror of omission and error of commission. Participants

222 PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN



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indicated that undoing the error of omission would havea greater impact than undoing the error of commission.This broader reach of errors of omission suggests moreabstract representation. In another study, Ngbala andBranscombe (1997) recorded the counterfactuals partic-ipants generated following negative outcomes. The

counterfactuals generated for actions tended to be sub-ordinate (63.2%) rather than superordinate (15.8%),but the counterfactuals generated for inactions tended tobe superordinate (85%) rather than subordinate (15%).(For a related finding, see Hetts, Boninger, Armor,Gleicher, and Nathanson, 2000, Study 2.)

These findings begin to document that compared toerrors of commission, errors of omission are generallyassociated with abstract representation. Why might thisbe the case? An error of omission tends to be subjec-tively perceived as open or unfinished business(Savitsky et al., 1997). Events that are construed in sucha manner typically call to mind a higher number of

imaginable outcomes. That is, failing to act leads peopleto imagine the many ways they could haveacted and themany consequences of these potential courses of action(Savitsky et al., 1997). This perceived wider range ofconsequences is one of the hallmarks of abstract repre-sentation (Bar-Anan et al., 2006; Trope & Liberman,2003). In contrast, committing to a single course ofaction has the subjective effect of closing off all otheroptions. This sense of narrowing the field is one ofthe hallmarks of concrete representation (Trope &Liberman, 2003).

Why might the greater abstraction of errors of omis-sion translate into greater regret over time? The answer

may involve basic properties of human memory. Thehigher number of imagined consequences associatedwith errors of omission leads to more retrieval routes toreactivate memory for the event (i.e., a form of a faneffect; Anderson & Reder, 1999). Thus, over time, thegreater breadth of an error of omission leads people tostumble upon more reminders of the error, thereby con-tinually reopening the wound. Consistent with thisidea, Rajagopal, Raju, and Unnava (2006) showed thatover time, errors of omission become more accessible inmemory than errors of commission.

In the present research, we suggest that althougherrors of omission are (compared to errors of commis-sion) generally associated with abstract representation,there is nevertheless a high degree of variability in howabstractly people may represent an error of omission.We posit that to the extent that people represent anerror of omission abstractly, regret will increase overtime. As noted, abstract representation is likely toinclude the context and implications of the event. Thus,abstract representation of a distant-term omissionshould constitute a subjective expansion of the error,

causing it to be experienced as a chronic fixture in onesmental life. However, to the extent that people activatea concrete representation for an error of omission theyshould succeed in compartmentalizing it and preventingits implications from seeming widespread and chronic.Thus, for those who happen to represent the omission

concretely, the temporal effect of regret should be lesspronounced or even eliminated.To summarize, in the present studies we test a model

that systematically combines the links among temporaldistance, level of abstraction, and errors of commissionversus omission. We hypothesized that if it is the case that(a) near and distant past events differ in level of abstrac-tion, and (b) errors of commission and omission likewisediffer in level of abstraction, then (c) level of abstractionmediates the differential regret observed for errors ofomission versus commission in the distant versus nearpast. These three facets, taken together, may help toexplain the differential imprint that errors of omission

(vs. commission) leave in the distant past (vs. near past).Previous accounts have emphasized the different emo-

tional qualities or cognitive dissonance reductionprocesses associated with errors of omission and commis-sion and the distant and near past (Gilovich et al., 1998;Gilovich & Medvec, 1995). We submit that such warmmechanisms, though helpful, may benefit from being sup-plemented by colder concerns such as mental represen-tation. Note that our approach is not mutually exclusivewith accounts that evoke emotional or motivationalprocesses. We do suggest, however, that insight into howerrors are mentally represented contributes crucial detailto the emerging picture of the psychology of regret.

STUDY 1

The goal of Study 1 was to measure the degree ofabstraction participants spontaneously associated withnear-term and distant-term errors to determine whetherthis would influence the differential effect of distance onregret for errors of omission versus commission.

Method

Participants. Participants were 129 undergraduates

(82 females) enrolled in an introductory psychologycourse who received extra course credit for completingthe experiment.

Procedure. Participants read one of four scenariosrepresenting a 2 (error type: commission vs. omission) 2 (temporal distance: near term vs. distant term)between-subjects design. The scenario is presented inthe following with language used in the distant andinaction conditions in bold:

Leach, Plaks / ERRORS OF COMMISSION VS. OMISSION 223



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On the popular TV game show Deal or No Dealcon-testants are often faced with a particular scenario at theend of the game. The contestant has a suitcase contain-ing one of two amounts of money and there is anothersuitcase held by the host that contains the other amountof money. The contestant is faced with a decision ofwhether or not to switch his/her case before being

allowed to view the contents. The scenario below wasencountered by a contestant when it was aired [lastweek/five years ago].

Markus was a college student. Markuss case con-tained either $300,000 or $5. He chose [to switch/notto switch] his case, and when the host revealed the con-tents of the [new case/his case], it contained $5.

Participants completed the following item: Lookingback on the decision Markus made [last week/five yearsago], how regretful do you think Markus feels?Ratings were made on a 5-point scale that ranged fromnot at alltoextremely. Next, participants were asked to

explain as best you can in your own words thethoughts you had about the situation that led you toyour rating.

Results

Level of abstraction. Two coders who were blind tothe hypotheses coded participants free descriptions ona scale based on Semin and Fiedlers (1988) coding sys-tem, indicating the extent to which the response wasabstract versus concrete (0 to 2 scale). According to thissystem, more physically invariant behaviors are classi-fied at a lower level and less invariant behaviors at ahigher level. For example, ringing a doorbell can onlybe accomplished in a limited number of ways and isthus low level or concrete, whereas calling on a friendmay be accomplished in a wide variety of ways and isthus high level or abstract. Intercoder agreement was82%, and the mean rating was used when coders dis-agreed. A total of 5 participants were excluded fromfurther analysis because their responses indicated thatthey did not complete the experiment faithfully.

A 2 (error) 2 (temporal distance) analysis of variance(ANOVA) conducted on these abstraction ratingsrevealed a significant Error Temporal Distance interac-tion,F(1, 125) = 5.53,p < .05. Examination of the means

revealed that both error types were represented equiva-lently abstractly in the near term (Momission = 0.85 vs.Mcommission = 0.79, ns), but in the distant term, errors ofomission were represented more abstractly than errors ofcommission (Momission = 1.21 vs. Mcommission = 0.73), F(1,125) =6.02,p


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Discussion

The results of Study 1 demonstrate that (a) errors ofcommission and omission differ in how abstractly theyare spontaneously represented in the distant term and(b) this difference in abstraction accounts for the differ-ences in regret associated with distant-term errors ofomission versus commission. It is noteworthy that wedid not find any difference in level of abstractionbetween errors of commission versus omission in thenear-term condition. It appears that a minimum amountof temporal distance may be required to draw out thedifference in abstraction between omissions and com-missions. Consistent with this idea, we observed that inthe distant-term condition, errors of omission wereregretted more than errors of commission and thatmoreover, level of abstraction significantly mediated

this difference.Because a key element of the Study 1 data was notmanipulated (participants spontaneous descriptions),in Study 2 we sought to provide additional, convergingevidence for our hypothesis by manipulating all threeindependent variables, including level of abstraction. Inso doing, we tested the following hypothesis: If abstractrepresentation is critical to the elevated regret associ-ated with distant-term errors of omission, then when

participants are forced to represent distant-term errorsof omission concretely, regret should diminish. If so,this would indicate that level of abstraction is notmerely correlated with regret for distant-term omis-sions, but in fact plays a causal role. In addition, wetested whether the effect would generalize beyond the

simplified variant of the Monty Hall problem pre-sented in Study 1 by framing the dilemma in a different,real-world context.

STUDY 2

Method

Participants. Participants were 158 undergraduates(111 females) who received course credit for participation.

Procedure. Participants read one of eight scenarios thatreflected a 2 (error: commission vs. omission) 2 (tempo-

ral distance: near term vs. distant term) 2 (abstraction:abstract vs. concrete) between-subjects design (presentedin the following). The temporal distance manipulation ispresented in the first set of brackets (distant term in bold).The construal level manipulation is in the second set ofbrackets (high-level, abstract representation in bold). Theerror type manipulationcomprising the type of decision(action vs. inaction) and the outcomeis presented in thethird set of brackets (error of omission in bold).

Imagine the following scenario happened to you [sev-eral years ago/several days ago]. In thinking about thescenario, [try to analyze why you might have acted the

way you did. Try to put your behavior into the largercontext of your general goals in life./try to vividly imag-ine the situation in all its rich detail. Imagine exactlywhat the experience and feelings would be like.]

You have applied for two summer jobs. You receivea call from your potential boss at one of the companies.He says that they want to hire you, but they haventdecided which position to put you in: a high-ranking,high-paying position or a low-ranking, low-paying posi-tion. They will not tell you which position you wereassigned to until next week. The only catch is you haveto let him know by the end of today if you will acceptor decline the offer. A few minutes later, you get a callfrom the second company. The second boss says thesame thing: They want to hire you, but they haventdecided which position to put you in: a high-ranking,high-paying position or a low-ranking, low-paying posi-tion. They will not tell you which position you wereassigned to until next week. You are faced with a deci-sion: Do you accept the first offer or pass on the firstoffer and take a chance on the second offer? Becauseyou need the money, you do not have the option ofgoing without a job.


Near Term

Distant Term

n= 62

Error Type

(1 =Commission;

1 =Omission)

Regret

Level of Abstraction

.032,ns.029, ns

.228,ns(.227,ns)

n= 67

Error Type

(1 =Commission;

1 =Omission)

Regret

Level of Abstraction

.239*.599*

.291* (.147,ns)

* Sobel z= 2.20, p< .05

Figure 2 Tests of mediation in the near-term condition (top panel)and distant-term condition (bottom panel).



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[Decision: You decide to accept the first offer andpass on the second offer./You decide to pass on the firstoffer and accept the second offer. Result: The nextweek, a representative from the company that made thefirst offer calls and tells you were assigned to the low-paying position./The next week, the company whomade the second offer calls and tells you were assigned

to the low-paying position.]

On a separate page of the packet, participants wereasked to indicate how regretful they felt about the deci-sion right now on a 5-point Likert scale that rangedfrom not at all to extremely. (The inclusion of thephraseright nowwas meant to ensure that participantsconsidered the event from their present near-term or dis-tant-term vantage point rather than considering howthey felt at the time.) Participants were also asked torate how responsible they felt when looking back onthis decision (on a 5-point scale).

Next, participants were asked to complete three

manipulation check items without turning back to theprevious page. First, they were asked to indicatewhether they considered their error an error of commis-sion or omission by checking one of two boxes. Second,as a check of the temporal distance manipulation, theywere asked to fill in a blank asking when the eventoccurred. Third, as a check of the construal level manip-ulation, they were asked to complete the blank askingthem to describe the instructions we (the experimenters)gave them for how to think about the event.

Results

Manipulation checks. A total of 11 participants(evenly distributed across the conditions) failed at leastone manipulation check item. Inclusion or exclusion ofthese participants data did not significantly affect theresults. The results reported in the following includethese participants.

Ratings of regret. A 2 (error type) 2 (temporal dis-tance) 2 (level of abstraction) analysis of variance con-ducted on the ratings of regret revealed significant maineffects for level of abstraction and error (both Fs >14.80, both ps < .001), indicating that overall, partici-pants expressed more regret when the error was repre-sented abstractly (M =3.73) than concretely (M =3.28)and more regret when it was an omission (M = 3.88)than a commission (M =3.22). These main effects werequalified by all of the possible two-way interactions (allFs > 4.33, all ps < .05) and the predicted three-wayError Temporal Distance Level of Abstraction inter-action,F(1, 150) =4.01,p


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often requires delving into less salient, behind-the-scenes causes. For this reason, detecting the effect ofan inaction typically requires more abstract processingthan detecting the effect of an action. For example, theinfant who bangs her spoon on the table will likely per-ceive an effect of her action, especially when she is in arestaurant with easily embarrassed parents. In contrast,the infant who leaves her spoon on the table is less likelyto perceive that her parents appreciative glances werecaused by this nonaction. Detecting the relationshipbetween her nonaction and her parents glances wouldrequire a broader representation of the situation, onethat included, for example, the parents expectations ofthe childs behavior. It is reasonable to conclude thatover time, because understanding inactions as causesgenerally requires abstract processing, inactions wouldtend to readily activate an abstract perspective.

Although the effects of inactions may require a moreabstract perspective to discern, there is evidence that

errors resulting from inactions become more memo-rable than actions over time (Rajagopal et al., 2006).Why might that be? Typically, errors of omission,through their lack of action, are subjectively perceivedas leaving open a range of imaginable outcomes(Savitsky et al., 1997). In contrast, for errors of com-

mission, the action and its consequences are perceivedas known and this outcome has eliminated all otherpossible outcomes. Thus, errors of omission, with theirperceived higher number of dangling possibilities,should have more retrieval routes available to triggermemory for the event (Rajagopal et al., 2006).3 In thelong run, the continual reminderscoming from arange of sourceswould reinforce the subjective senseof globalizing the error across many aspects of ones life.In addition, the tendency to ruminate more over theunfinished business of errors of omissiona form ofa Zeigarnik effectshould further increase the memo-rability of errors of omission (Savitsky et al., 1997).

Over time, as memory for particular details of botherrors of commission and errors of omission degrade,this effect should only increase.

As a simplified example, consider the differencebetween asking a person out on a date and being rejected(an error of commission) versus never asking the personout and being haunted by what could have been (anerror of omission). In the latter case, both options (beingaccepted and being rejected) are likely to be perceivedas still-open possibilities. In the former case, gettingrejected becomes the known quantity and in turn, theonly outcome remaining. Thus, for errors of omission,both thoughts about being rejected and thoughts about

being accepted should activate memory for the decision,whereas for errors of commission only thoughts aboutbeing rejected should trigger the memory.4

Consistent with this account, Rajagopal et al. (2006)found that over time, the accessibility (as measured byresponse time and response order) of errors of omissionincreased. This was not the case for errors of commis-sion. Rajagopal et al. found that this difference in acces-sibility between errors of omission and commission wasrelated in part to the greater subjective breadth oferrors of omission. Breadth was operationalized as thenumber of areas of participants lives affected by theerror and thus corresponds to a key aspect of abstractrepresentation. Although no studies, to our knowledge,have directly tested the interrelations among level ofabstraction, memory, and regret for errors of omissionand commission over time, the accumulated evidence ishighly suggestive that the effect of level of abstractionon regret is due in large measure to (a) greater memora-bility for the event and (b) increased focus on thebroader implications of the event.


Figure 3 Regret for abstractly versus concretely represented errorsof commission and omission in the distant term (toppanel) and the near term (bottom panel).

Near Term

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

Commission Omission

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0

commission omission

Concrete Abstract

Concrete Abstract

Distant Term



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It is worth noting that in Study 1, in the near-termcondition, there was no difference in level of abstractionbetween errors of commission and omission. (As noted,this pattern is consistent with construal level theory,which does not necessarily predict a crossover interac-tion.) From these data it appears that in the near term,

the difference in regret between errors of commissionand omission that has been previously found in the lit-erature may not hinge on level of abstraction. Instead,the warmer mechanisms described in previous research(Gilovich et al., 1998) may be more applicable to near-term regret. In the distant term, however, level ofabstraction exerted a clear effect in both of the presentstudies. Taken together, it is plausible that warmer andcolder mechanisms play leading roles at different pointsin the temporal sequence. Future research is needed toilluminate at what point in time the warmer processescede ground to the colder processes.

In summary, the two studies reported here indicate

that how events are mentally represented play a signifi-cant, heretofore underexamined role in the experienceof regret for errors that occurred in the distant past. Asnoted, this is not to deny that emotional and motiva-tional processes play important roles as well, as there isclear evidence that they do (e.g., Gilovich et al., 1995,1998). Nevertheless, the present studies underscore theways in which initial mental representation may set thetone for how emotional and motivational processes playout. Future researchers may do well to explore the inter-play between warmer and colder processes in the expe-rience of regret by examining how emotional andmotivational aspects influenceand in turn are influ-

enced byhow an error is mentally framed.

NOTES

1. Byrne and McEleneys (2000) attempts to replicate Gilovich andMedvecs (1994, Studies 3 and 4) findings using a scenario similar tothat used by Kahneman and Tversky (1982) were unsuccessful.However, Byrne and McEleneys studies were fundamentally differentin that they manipulated the temporal distance between the decisionand outcome rather than the temporal distance of the outcome itself.

2. It is important to note that construal level theory does not nec-essarily imply a crossover pattern whereby concrete features are moresalient in the near term and abstract features are more salient in thedistant term. Rather, in the near term abstract and concrete features

are likely to be similarly salient with the potential for concrete fea-tures to be more salient than abstract features, but as distanceincreases, the concrete features become less salient, resulting inabstract features being more salient than concrete features.

3. Note that this is in accord with one of the ways that Semin andFiedler (1988) operationalized abstractness: An end that can beaccomplished by more means (e.g., killing John) is more abstractthan one that can be accomplished by fewer means (e.g., pulling thetrigger).

4. Note that in the present studies, for the sake of creating equiv-alence among the experimental conditions, we gave the error of omis-sion in our scenarios a single known outcome. In everyday life,

however, the majority of errors of omission are likely to be associatedwith greater uncertainty and a greater number of plausible outcomes(as in the example of failing to ask the person out). Thus, even in caseswhen the error of omission does have a high degree of certainty andfinality, it is reasonable to assume that the processingtypicallyassoci-ated with errors of omission would be activated.

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Received March 18, 2008Revision accepted August 23, 2008



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