### abstract ###
previous research has demonstrated that consistency between people's behavior and their dispositions has predictive validity for judgments of regret
research has also shown that differences in the personality variable of action orientation can influence ability to regulate negative affect
the present set of studies was designed to investigate how both consistency factors and action-state personality orientation influence judgments of regret
in study  NUMBER   we used a recalled life event to provide a situation in which the person had experienced either an action or inaction
individuals with an action orientation experienced more regret for situations involving inaction staying home than situations involving action going out
state-oriented individuals  however  maintained high levels of regret and did not differ in their regret ratings across either the action or inaction situations
in study  NUMBER   participants made realistic choices involving either an action or inaction
our findings revealed the same pattern of results  action-oriented individuals who chose an option that involved not acting inaction had more regret that individuals who chose an option that involved acting action
state-oriented individuals experienced high levels of regret regardless of whether they chose to act or not to act
### introduction ###
unquestionably  we all feel regret at times  whether we missed a great opportunity or failed to make the right decisions when pressed under the weight of burdening stress
this somber feeling of loss can accompany our actions or lack thereof and be a powerful force for both our emotional and behavioral responses
efforts at understanding the experiences underlying these feelings of regret have led to different avenues of research
much of the contemporary work charged with understand regret has spotlighted attention on how imaginary outcomes or  counterfactuals  influence a person's feeling of regret  CITATION
although this certainly makes up a fascinating facet of the regret process  the  focused attention  of research has lead most researchers to relinquish pursuit of other pre-decisional factors that come into play in the regret process
recently  however  a good deal of research has begun to examine this aspect of the processes involved in regret
specifically  research has demonstrated that consistency factors between people and their behavior also play an important role in understanding the regret process  CITATION
one aspect of the consistency-regret relationship that remains largely uninvestigated is how individual difference factors influence reliance on consistency information
in this paper we focus on how the individual difference factor of action-state orientation affects responsiveness to decision factors action vs inaction as well as the ability to regulate bad outcome information in a regretful situation
