Dealing with Missed Opportunities: Action vs. State Orientation Moderates Inaction Inertia

Putten, Marijke van; Zeelenberg, Marcel; Dijk, Eric van

doi:10.1037/e722352011-012

Cited by 15 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…State-oriented people were clearly more influenced by the attractiveness of the missed opportunity than were action-oriented participants and showed a significantly increased inaction inertia effect. Action-oriented people were more likely to book a trip to Rome after missing a much more attractive deal than were stateoriented people (van Putten et al, 2009; see Figure 4). …”

Section: Personality Moderatorsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Inaction inertia

Putten

Zeelenberg

Dijk

et al. 2013

European Review of Social Psychology

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Section: Personality Moderatorsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Inaction inertia

Putten

Zeelenberg

Dijk

et al. 2013

European Review of Social Psychology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

“…When these connections are severed, due to circumstances or personal inclinations, people’s thoughts, decisions, and actions are less likely to be influenced by the past. Recently, Van Putten and her colleagues (Van Putten, Zeelenberg, & Van Dijk, 2009; Van Putten et al., 2010) conducted a series of experiments that demonstrated the role of state versus action orientation in people’s ability to decouple the past from the present. People who are action oriented find it easier to let go of past events and indeed are less susceptible to the sunk cost effect compared to people who are state oriented who tend to ruminate on the past (Van Putten et al., 2010).…”

Section: Sunk Costs and Inaction Inertia – Similarities And Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…People who are action oriented find it easier to let go of past events and indeed are less susceptible to the sunk cost effect compared to people who are state oriented who tend to ruminate on the past (Van Putten et al., 2010). Similarly, participants who were induced with an action orientation by instructing them to think about ways to improve the situation were less likely to show inaction inertia than participants who were induced with a state orientation by asking them to list their thoughts and feelings associated with a missed opportunity (Van Putten et al., 2009).…”

Section: Sunk Costs and Inaction Inertia – Similarities And Differencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Lingering Effects of Our Past Experiences: The Sunk‐Cost Fallacy and the Inaction‐Inertia Effect

Tykocinski

Ortmann

2011

Social & Personality Psych

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The effect of past experiences and actions in shaping current perceptions, emotions, decisions and goals is widely recognized in the psychological literature. When it comes to economic decisions, however, these influences are sometimes seen as impediments to rational decision-making. In an attempt to explore the enduring consequences of the past, we present, compare, and discuss two familiar behavioral phenomena: The sunk-cost effect, which refers to situations where continued actions are fueled by past investments, and the inaction-inertia effect, in which continued inaction is triggered by the shadows of missed opportunities. Although one process elicits continued action and the other continued inaction, we show that there is a great deal of similarity in the psychological underpinnings of these effects, and argue that respecting sunk costs and avoiding actions that are associated with forgone opportunities are not necessarily unreasonable, or maladaptive behaviors.

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“…Future longitudinal or experimental studies will facilitate more causal evaluations. For example, Van Putten et al (2009) manipulated AOF and demonstrated that participants reported becoming more action-oriented when they were instructed on how they could improve the situation than when they described their thoughts and feelings after they had just missed an attractive opportunity. The third limitation of our study is that it utilized convenience sampling (students from only one university in China), rather than a population-based sample.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Failure-Related Action Orientation and Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Forgivingness

2015

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This study examined the association between failure-related action orientation and life satisfaction, with a primary focus on confirmation of the mediating role of forgivingness in Chinese college students. 277 participants (165 males and 112 females) from Mainland China completed a subscale of the Action Control Scale (ACS-90) called the Failure-related Action Orientation Scale (AOF), the Tendency to Forgive Scale (Brown in Personal Soc Psychol Bull 29(6):759-771, 2003) and the Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al. in J Personal Assess 49 (1): [71][72][73][74][75] 1985). Results from structural equation modeling showed that forgivingness partially mediated the relationship between failure-related action orientation and life satisfaction. Moreover, AOF, forgivingness and life satisfaction did not differ across gender or age groups. Implications for the model of failure-related action orientation, forgivingness and life satisfaction in college students are discussed.

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Dealing with Missed Opportunities: Action vs. State Orientation Moderates Inaction Inertia

Cited by 15 publications

References 14 publications

Inaction inertia

Inaction inertia

The Lingering Effects of Our Past Experiences: The Sunk‐Cost Fallacy and the Inaction‐Inertia Effect

Failure-Related Action Orientation and Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Forgivingness

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