When curiosity killed regret: Avoiding or seeking the unknown in decision-making under uncertainty
Section snippets
Experiment 1: The more I know, the more I want to know
Some time ago, one of the authors of this article witnessed an intriguing scene at the local market. A merchant was selling wrapped packages to a crowd of people who anxiously waved their Euros. What was the content of the package? Nobody knew! As the merchant said, the only way to know the content was to buy the package. He only gave some vague hints about the content, such as “it’s a useful item” and “it’s handy.” Apparently, this knowledge was sufficient to induce curiosity and a willingness
Experiment 2: If it’s There, I Want to Know
As we noted earlier, there is an additional way in which a regret-aversive strategy may affect decision-making. We noted that after having made a decision, people may block out information that might indicate that they made the wrong decision. Put differently, they selectively expose themselves to information by not attending to information that would not be supportive of their decision (cf. Festinger, 1957, Festinger, 1964, Frey, 1986). Blocking out information may, however, be easier said
General discussion
Enhancing curiosity may be an effective means to influence decision-making in marketing contexts (Menon & Soman, 2002), and as the current findings suggest, this curiosity may be so strong that it overrides regret aversion. The merchant at the local market described in the introduction of Experiment 1 most certainly was aware of this. Based on the current findings, we suggest that several aspects contributed to his success. First of all, he increased curiosity by increasing the knowledge of the
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