A Regret Theory Approach to Assessing Consumer Satisfaction

Because consumer satisfaction is an important determinant of brandloyalty and word-of-mouth communications, it has been widely studied inthe marketing literature. Much of this literature follows theexpectancy-disconfirmation paradigm, which posits satisfaction to be afunction of the positive or negative disconfirmation of one'sexpectations about the chosen brand. This article proposes a richermodel of consumer satisfaction that incorporates effects ofexpectations about the options not ultimately chosen from theconsideration set. Specifically, we posit that the expectations aboutthe unchosen alternatives affect satisfaction with one's choice whenthat choice does not meet the expectations but will have little effectwhen the choice meets expectations. A series of experimental studiesprovide support for this approach.