Dealing with missed opportunities, the causes and boundary conditions of inaction inertia - Van Putten, Marijke; Zeelenberg, M.; Van Dijk, E. (Ridderkerk Ridderprint, 2008)
Inaction inertia refers to the effect that missing a more attractive opportunity decreases the likelihood to act on an attractive current opportunity in the same domain. We studied the influence of how people cope with negative decision outcomes (i.e., action vs. state orientation) on this inaction inertia effect. Experiment 1 used an experimental induction of action vs. state orientation and confirmed our prediction that state oriented people showed more inaction inertia than action oriented people. Experiment 2 replicated these results with a measure of chronic action orientation and showed a mediating effect of valuation of the current opportunity. Experiment 3 showed that temporal segregation of the current from the missed opportunity decreased inaction inertia effects for state oriented, but not for action oriented people. We discuss the implications of these results for the inaction inertia and action vs. state orientation literatures.
This research is supported by a grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO 400-03-385).
Includes bibliographical references.
Tac-3591g donated by UPAA Netherlands 24 June 2015.
Keywords: Social psychology; Inaction inertia