The addition of anticipated regret to attitudinally based, goal-directed models of information search behaviours under conditions of uncertainty and risk

Social science attempts to incorporate emotions into models of judgment and decision making have faced significant theoretical challenges, as well as produced conflicting empirical results. The following study first contributes to the body of knowledge by providing a theoretical explanation for the observed conflicting results from such models. In fact, both extant theory and the results reported herein suggest that a certain amount of variability in results should be expected from empirical investigations based on such models, particularly related to differences in respondents' level of affective versus cognitive involvement. Second, an argument is presented for considering a special case of Perugini and Bagozzi's (2001) Model of Goal‐directed Behaviours (MGBs) when investigating these issues using attitude‐based explanations of goal‐related behaviours. Specifically, empirical evidence is presented for broadening the MGB model by including anticipated regret as an explanatory variable independent of other anticipated emotions, and deepening the theory by calling for multidimensional conceptualizations of the attitude and perceived behavioural control constructs. The implications of the reported study are presented and discussed.