Researchers of decision-making and human–computer interactions have been concerned with the issue of action slips and the development of supportive functionalities to reduce the occurrence of the slips. However, it remains unclear how to measure slips in a decision-making context and how motivational factors can help to reduce action slips. In this study, we formulate the construct of execution discrepancy to represent an individual’s deviation from his/her planned actions and propose a self-regulatory model to explain the antecedents and consequences of this construct. The model specifies that self-efficacy exerts a positive influence on the reduction of execution discrepancy that, in turn, leads to enhanced decision performance. An experiment was conducted based on the multi-attribute decision paradigm, and decision-makers’ eye movements were tracked to measure their execution discrepancy. The results support our hypothesis that self-efficacy serves as an important motivational factor to modulate cognitive efforts needed to reduce execution discrepancy during strategy execution. In addition to its theoretical and methodological contribution to the construct of execution discrepancy, this study may have essential implications for the design of technological artifacts that can predict and prevent possible action slips.

决策和人机交互的研究人员一直关注行动单的问题以及支持功能的发展，以减少行动单的发生。然而，目前尚不清楚如何在决策环境下衡量失误，以及动机因素如何有助于减少行动失误。在这项研究中，我们制定了执行差异的结构，以表示一个人偏离其计划行动的情况，并提出了一个自我调节模型来解释这种结构的前因和后果。该模型规定，自我效能感对减少执行差异有积极的影响，反过来又可以提高决策绩效。基于多属性决策范式进行了实验，并跟踪决策者的眼球运动以衡量他们的执行差异。结果支持我们的假设，即自我效能感是调节策略执行过程中减少执行差异所需的认知努力的重要动机因素。除了对执行差异的构造提供理论和方法上的帮助外，本研究可能对设计可预测和防止可能的动作失误的技术工件的设计也具有重要意义。