Let's revisit Question 2, where Cousin Snap gives you a choice between two lottery tickets. These tickets offer a choice between

A) $1 million, with probability 11 percent or B) $5 million, with probability 10 percent.

Here's a different way to offer essentially the same choices: I'll let you choose one ball from an urn containing 10 black balls, one white ball, and 89 red balls. You can choose in advance between the following rewards:

A) $1 million if you get either a black ball or a white ball or B) $5 million if you get a black ball.

In one sense, I'm offering exactly the same options that Cousin Snap does. But unlike Cousin Snap, I am threatening you with the possibility of regret: If you choose B and get the white ball, you're going to feel very sorry that you didn't choose A.

So if regret-avoidance is an important determinant of behavior, we'd expect a lot of people who choose Snap's option B will switch to my option A. This is such an obvious test for regret-avoidance that I feel certain someone must have already thought of it and carried it out. Perhaps some reader who is better educated than I am can send me the reference.