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Disappointment
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Disappointment is the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations or hopes to
manifest. Similar to regret, it differs in that a person who feels regret focuses primarily on the
personal choices that contributed to a poor outcome, while a person feeling disappointment focuses
on the outcome itself.[1] It is a source of psychological stress.[2] The study of disappointmentits
causes, impact, and the degree to which individual decisions are motivated by a desire to avoid
itis a focus in the field of decision analysis,[1][3] as disappointment is, along with regret, one of
two primary emotions involved in decision-making.[4]

Contents
1 Etymology
2 Psychology
3 Theory
4 See also
5 Notes
6 Further reading
7 External links

Etymology
Disappoint is traced to the Middle English disappointen by way of the Old French desapointer. In
literal meaning, it is to remove from office.[5] Its use in the sense of general frustration traces to the
late 15th century, and it first appears recorded in English as an emotional state of dejection in the
middle 18th century.[6]

Psychology
Disappointment is a subjective response related to anticipated rewards. Disappointment recovery
time can vary among people for some it can take a few minutes some take a few days.

Disappointment, and an inability to prepare for it, has also been hypothesized as the source of
occasional immune system compromise in optimists.[7] While optimists by and large exhibit better
health,[8] they may alternatively exhibit less immunity when under prolonged or uncontrollable
stress, a phenomenon which researchers have attributed to the "disappointment effect".[7] The

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"disappointment effect" posits that optimists do not utilize

"emotional cushioning" to prepare for disappointment and hence
are less able to deal with it when they experience it.[8][9] This
disappointment effect has been challenged since the mid-1990s by
researcher Suzanne C. Segerstrom, who has published, alone and
in accord, several articles evaluating its plausibility. Her findings
suggest that, rather than being unable to deal with disappointment,
optimists are more likely to actively tackle their problems and
experience some immunity compromise as a result.[10]

In 1994, psychotherapist Ian Craib published the book The

Importance of Disappointment, in which he drew on the works of
Melanie Klein and Sigmund Freud in advancing the theory that
disappointment-avoidant culturesparticularly therapy culture
Disappointment (1882), by
provides false expectations of perfection in life and prevents
Julius LeBlanc Stewart
people from achieving a healthy self-identity.[11] Craib offered as
two examples litigious victims of medical mistakes, who once
would have accepted accidents as a course of life, and people suffering grief following the death of
a loved one who, he said, are provided a false stage model of recovery that is more designed to
comfort bereavement therapists than the bereaved.[12]

Theory
Disappointment theory, pioneered in the mid-1980s by David E. Bell with further development by
Graham Loomes and Robert Sugden,[13] revolves around the notion that people contemplating risks
are disappointed when the outcome of the risk is not evaluated as positively as the expected
outcome.[14] Disappointment theory has been utilized in examining such diverse decision-making
processes as return migration, taxpayer compliance and customer willingness to pay.[15] David Gill
and Victoria Prowse provide experimental evidence that people are disappointment averse when
they compete.[16]

Disappointed individuals focus on "upward counterfactuals"alternative outcomes that would

have been better than the one actually experiencedto the point that even positive outcomes may
result in disappointment.[17] One example, supplied by Bell, concerns a lottery win of $10,000.00,
an event which will theoretically be perceived more positively if that amount represents the highest
possible win in the lottery than if it represents the lowest.[18] Decision analysts operate on the
assumption that individuals will anticipate the potential for disappointment and make decisions that
are less likely to lead to the experience of this feeling.[13] Disappointment aversion has been
posited as one explanation for the Allais paradox, a problematic response in expected utility theory
wherein people prove more likely to choose a sure reward than to risk a higher one while at the
same time being willing to attempt a greater reward with lower probability when both options
include some risk.[19]

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While earlier developers of disappointment theory focused on

anticipated outcomes, more recent examinations by Philippe
Delqui and Alessandra Cillo of INSEAD have focused on the
impact of later disappointment resulting when an actual outcome
comes to be regarded negatively based on further development; for
example, if a person receives higher than expected gains in the
stock market, she may be elated until she discovers a week later
that she could have gained much more profit if she had waited a
few more days to sell.[13] This experience of disappointment may
influence subsequent behavior, and, the analysts state, an
incorporation of such variables into disappointment theory may
enhance the study of behavioral finance.[13] Disappointment is,
along with regret, measured by direct questioning of
respondents.[20]

See also
Carnoustie effect
Frustration
Notes
1. Bell, David E. (January 1985). "Putting a
premium on regret". Management Science. 31
(1): 11720. doi:10.1287/mnsc.31.1.117.
JSTOR 2631680.
2. Ma, Lybi. (March 29, 2004). Down But Not
Out (https://web.archive.org
/web/20051119051209/http:
//www.medicinenet.com/script
/main/art.asp?articlekey=37951). Originally
published in Psychology Today. Hosted with
permission by medicinenet.com. Retrieved
22/02/08.
3. Wilco, W. van Dijk, Marcel Zeelenberg and
Joop van der Pligt (August 2003). "Blessed are
those who expect nothing: Lowering
expectations as a way of avoiding
disappointment". Journal of Economic
Psychology. 24 (4): 50516.
doi:10.1016/S0167-4870(02)00211-8.
Untitled - Woman with a
peacock (1919), by Jogesh
Chandra Seal
4. Wilco W. van Dijk; Marcel Zeelenberg
(December 2002). "Investigating the appraisal
patterns of regret and disappointment".
Motivation and Emotion. 26 (4): 32131.
doi:10.1023/A:1022823221146.
5. "disappoint". The American Heritage
Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed.
Houghton Mifflin Company. 1992. p. 529.
6. "disappointment". The New Shorter Oxford
English Dictionary. 1. Clarendon Press,
Oxford. 1993. p. 683. ISBN 0-19-861271-0.
7. Schwartz, Todd. (Summer 2003) Positive
thinking (http://www.lclark.edu/dept/chron
/positives03.html) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20080307175146
/http://www.lclark.edu/dept/chron
/positives03.html) March 7, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine. Chronicle, Lewis & Clark
College. Retrieved 22/02/08.

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Disappointment - Wikipedia
8. Neimark, Jill. (May/Jun 2007) The optimism
revolution (https://archive.is/20120531064842
/http://psychologytoday.com/articles
/index.php?term=20070424-000004&page=1)
Psychology Today. Retrieved 22/02/08.
9. Grohol, John M. (February 4, 2006) Is it best to
expect the worst? Psychologists test long-held
theory of emotional cushioning
(http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2006/02
/04/is-it-best-to-expect-the-worst-
psychologists-test-long-held-theory-
of-emotional-cushioning/). psychcentral.com.
Retrieved 22/02/08.
10. Segerstrom SC (September 2006). "How does
optimism suppress immunity? Evaluation of
three affective pathways". Health Psychol. 25
(5): 6537. doi:10.1037/0278-6133.25.5.653.
PMC 1613541 . PMID 17014284.. See also
Segerstrom SC (May 2005). "Optimism and
immunity: do positive thoughts always lead to
positive effects?". Brain Behav. Immun. 19 (3):
195200. doi:10.1016/j.bbi.2004.08.003.
PMC 1948078 . PMID 15797306.
11. Seale, Clive (2002). Media and Health.
London: Sage Publications, Inc. pp. 167, 242.
ISBN 0-7619-4730-2.
12. Seale, p. 167-168.
13. "Disappointment Without Prior Expectation
Cause and Affect" - Understanding emotion in
decisions under risk
(http://knowledge.insead.edu
/abstract.cfm?ct=15268) INSEAD (2005).
Retrieved 22/02/08.
14. Delqui, Philippe; Alessandra Cillo (December
2006). "Disappointment without prior
expectation: a unifying perspective on decision
under risk". Journal of Risk and Uncertainty.
33 (3): 197215.
doi:10.1007/s11166-006-0499-4.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappointment
15. See, for example, Why Do People Go Home
Again? Disappointment Theory and Target
Saving Theory Revisited (http://ciep.itam.mx
/~cuecuecha/Whydopeople2.pdf) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20080414113537
/http://ciep.itam.mx/~cuecuecha
/Whydopeople2.pdf) April 14, 2008, at the
Wayback Machine. , David Kelsey; Albert
Schepanski (1991). "Regret and disappointment
in taxpayer reporting decisions: An
experimental study". Journal of Behavioral
Decision Making. 4 (1): 3353.
doi:10.1002/bdm.3960040104. and Christian
Homburg; Nicole Koschate; Wayne D. Hoyer
(April 2005). "Do satisfied customers really
pay more? A study of the relationship between
customer satisfaction and willingness to pay".
Journal of Marketing. 69 (2): 8496.
doi:10.1509/jmkg.69.2.84.60760.
16. Gill, David; Victoria Prowse. "A structural
analysis of disappointment aversion in a real
effort competition" (PDF). American Economic
Review, forthcoming. Archived from the
original (PDF) on December 30, 2011.
17. Schwartz, Alan (2002). "Expected feelings
about risky options". In Moore, Simon.
Emotional Cognition: From Brain to Behavior
(Advances in Consciousness Research, 44).
John Benjamins Publishing Co. pp. 18396.
ISBN 1-58811-224-1.
18. Bell, David E. (JanFeb 1985).
"Disappointment in Decision Making under
Uncertainty". Operations Research. 33 (1):
127. doi:10.1287/opre.33.1.1. JSTOR 170863.
19. Jianmin Jia; James S. Dyer; John C. Butler
(January 2001). "Generalized disappointment
models". Journal of Risk and Uncertainty. 59
(1): 5978. and Gul, Faruk (May 1991). "A
Theory of Disappointment Aversion".
Econometrica. 59 (3): 66786.
doi:10.2307/2938223. JSTOR 2938223. For an
alternate model of the Allais paradox, see The
Allais Paradox
(http://www.overcomingbias.com/2008/01
/allais-paradox.html) at overcomingbias.com.
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20. Marcatto, Francesco; Donatella Ferrante assessing regret and disappointment in decision
(January 2008). "The Regret and making". Judgment and Decision Making. 3
Disappointment Scale: An instrument for (1): 8799.

Further reading
Craib, Ian (22 Sep 1994). The Importance of Disappointment. Routledge. p. 216.
ISBN 0-415-09383-X.
Loomes, Graham (February 1988). "Further Evidence of the Impact of Regret and
Disappointment in Choice under Uncertainty". Economica. 55 (217): 4762.
doi:10.2307/2554246. JSTOR 2554246.
Mandel, David R.; Denis J. Hilton; Patrizia Catellani (2005). The Psychology of
Counterfactual Thinking. Routledge. p. 251. ISBN 0-415-32241-3.

External links
The dictionary definition of disappointment at Wiktionary
Quotations related to Disappointment at Wikiquote

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