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Inaction inertia is the phenomenon that one is not likely to act upon an attractive opportunity after having bypassed an even more attractive opportunity. We investigated the boundary conditions of this inaction inertia effect. Based on the mental accounting literature and the transaction decoupling literature we predicted and found in three experiments that tight coupling of the forgone to the current opportunity is a necessary condition for inaction inertia to occur. Inaction inertia decreased when information about the missed opportunity was ambiguous (Experiment 1), when the past opportunity required an extra step to obtain (Experiment 2) and when the past and present opportunity decreased in comparability (Experiment 3). The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed in view of the literature on inaction inertia and on judgment and decision-making.

After a product has been on promotion, the sales of that product may temporarily decrease. This post-promotion dip is normally explained in terms of forward buying or stockpiling. This article offers a third explanation in terms of brand switching. The results of two experiments show that after missing a discount on their regular brand, consumers may switch to another brand. Switching behavior is much more pronounced when a large discount is missed in comparison to when a small discount is missed. This finding is consistent with recent social psychological research on inaction inertia, and the results are discussed in relation to this phenomenon. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Marketers often use discounts as a way of increasing sales. By temporarily lowering the price of a product, companies can attract consumers that normally buy different brands, and thus increase their market share. In addition, by the use of discounts companies can also increase the amount of products bought by the already loyal consumers and thereby increase the share of wallet of these customers. The frequency by which discounts are used nowadays clearly suggests that this tactic is efficient.

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a b s t r a c tInaction 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.Ó 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.People differ in how they cope with missed opportunities and bad decisions. Some people dwell on missed opportunities, feel bad about them for a long time and do not seem to be able to leave the past behind them. Others get over those failures relatively quickly and focus on how to improve the here and now instead. Extensive research has demonstrated that these differences in coping reflect a fundamental dimension in how people approach current challenging situations and referred to it as state vs. action orientation (see for a review, Kuhl & Beckmann, 1994). The present research investigates how this orientation influences an important behavioral consequence of missed opportunities called inaction inertia (Tykocinski, Pittman, & Tuttle, 1995). Inaction inertia refers to the effect that people, after missing out on an initial attractive opportunity, are less likely to act on further opportunities despite their objective attractiveness. We propose that if people differ in the way they cope with missed opportunities, the influence of missed opportunities on current decisions should differ accordingly. This article reports three experiments that demonstrate a weaker inaction inertia effect for action oriented people than for state oriented people.Inaction inertia implies that decisions to act on an attractive opportunity in the present are negatively influenced by inactions from the past. For example, although people may find the opportunity to book a vacation on discount for $900 instead of $1000 very attractive, they will decline it when they missed an earlier opportunity to book it for $400. Inaction inertia is demonstrated when likelihood to act on an attractive current opportunity is lower when the difference in attractiveness between the missed and the current opportunity is large than when it is small. Thus, the more attractive the missed opportunity (initial inaction) was, the lower the likelihood that people will act on an attractive action opportunity now (inertia). This effect is very robust and has been found for...