Regret and Curiosity in Food Choice

Curiosity and regret are two opposing factors influencing decision-making, which individually have been widely investigated in previous literature. However, little research has been conducted to acknowledge the concurrent influence of curiosity and regret. Zeelenberg and Van Dijk (2007) were one of the first to combine these two factors and test their influence on decision-making. They found that curiosity has the potential to override regret aversion. The experiment used in this research combined the study of Zeelenberg and Van Dijk (2007) with a translation to the food domain. In this way, implications for healthy versus unhealthy food decision-making are found. In this study, two theories were used. Information gap theory was used to increase curiosity. Conversely, regret theory was used to increase regret aversion. The experimental setting tested if these two theories had an effect on the decision-making of the subjects and which of the two had a larger influence. Using a sample of 126 subjects, experimental results indicated that the results found by Zeelenberg and Van Dijk (2007) are not observable to the same extent in this study. Overall, no statistical evidence was found for the hypotheses. This was mainly due to the fact that the control treatment showed an exceptionally high amount of curiosity. Interestingly, a gender difference was observed. For the male participants, it seems there is no correspondence to the theories. However, the female participants seem to behave in accordance to both theories. Additionally, it seems that females are influenced by regret aversion to a higher extent than curiosity. This study presents a critical note on the external validity of the results found in previous studies and demonstrates the need for further research in this domain.