What is Regret?

     Every person, one time in their life, has come across an unpleasant feeling of uncertainty. This uncertainty stems from previous experiences, intense decision-making opportunities, and a whole bunch of  “what if.” How would life be different had I done this over something I previously did? Was this the best course of action? What are the pros and cons of me making this decision over another? We tend to make some intense life changing decisions in split seconds, but later on in life, we might sit back and think, was this the right decision? Am I happy with what I have done/where I am in my life? These basic questions all stem back to that one feeling of regret. Regret tends to derive from those second guessing, gut-wrenching, uneasy decisions we are asked to make throughout our lifetime. Uncertainties including creating a career in one field but maybe regretting that decision down the line, finding the right person you want to spend the rest of your life with, and more importantly being happy with where you are in life are just a few of the daunting things people do not like addressing. As a 21 year old, I can very much say I have regretted many things I’ve done throughout my lifetime. Intense regret seems to greatly stem from making important life decisions that define who you may become down the line. The best way to define regret is: an unpleasant feeling (sadness/depression/anger/disappointment) over specific life-changing opportunities that result in an unfavorable outcome, or not the outcome one wanted. It is this feeling that can stay with someone forever, and that person can spend his or her whole life contemplating if that was the right decision to make. 

In Neal J.  Roese’s work of,  What We Regret Most….and Why, he talks about what specific factors can generate the possible feeling of regret. He delves into the fact that the greatest opportunities present the greatest chances of feeling regret, and he essentially categorizes six of the top biggest regret factors one experiences in life in order. The six factors are as follows: education, career, romance, parenting, the self, and leisure (Roese 2005). Our lives revolve around these factors 24/7, 365 days a year. We do not wake up in the morning to stabilize our mental health. We wake up everyday to ensure our responsibilities in our lives including our education, the self, and career are constantly attended to throughout our course of a lifetime. We develop any kind of career just to ensure we have money, but are we happy with the decisions we made? Can a person sit back and easily say they’ve lived life with no regret? Through the various different studies conducted by Roese, it was observed that people’s biggest regrets in life are those that have the greatest opportunity for a change and growth (Roese 2008). We will do whatever we can to ensure we have money in our pockets, a house to live in, clothes to wear, and an education to obtain, but are we truly happy? How likely is it that every decision we’ve made in our lifetime is the right decision? How can we address that? Another study conducted by Gilovich and Shai Davidai delves into the idea that regret stems from the failure of being a person that reached their goals/aspirations. There are three different views one person has of themselves: (1) the ideal self, (2) the person I should be, and (3) the person I am (Davidai 2018). People feel immediate disappointment and regret when they fail to reach an expectation that they set themselves up for. It was observed from their studies that different age groups and demographics all shared the same feeling of regret when they were unable to accomplish any life goals, hopes, and or any aspirations they may have had of themselves. They were short of their life-goals, and they will now forever reminisce about “what could have been.” It seems as though humans need to adapt the ability of creating a self sufficient plan to help marginalize cost of time vs the impact they had on this world in accomplishing their goals and aspirations. 

Brian M. Sweis’s work of, Mice learn to avoid regret, was a revolutionary experiment that opened the door for studying how regret works. They delved into the ideology of regret, and they classified regret being presented into two different forms: (1) augmenting immediate post regret valuations and (2) augmenting long-term changes in decision making. They tested regret by having various mice subjects undergo a square maze test with 4 different feeding sites that were displayed as restaurants. Each restaurant had its own unique flavor and different spatial cues (pitches), and this maze test essentially tested the mice’s ability to avoid regret and create the most efficient/sufficient plan to ensure adequate food intake was being accomplished along with ensuring minimal time was utilized. The cost of time was the unit measured in different delay mices that were waiting depending on how long they were willing to wait for food, as well as measuring the cost of time used up when the mice would choose a flavor they liked. As a result of this experiment, it was observed that mice were able to create a self-sufficient plan to ensure the cost of time was radically low compared to the intake of food each mouse was consuming. These mice quickly developed the ability to learn from their regretful decision before when they first entered the maze, and are now adequately taking care of themselves in an extremely efficient fashion. Each mouse had to answer and invite the uneasiness of their regretful decisions. They had to learn from their mistakes and they had to develop a plan that would essentially help them survive. If they weren’t able to save the cost of time by being greedy in obtaining their favorite foods, these types of mice would not be able to live much longer. 

Mice were able to adapt to the situation they were presented with, and created a self sufficient plan to avoid the feeling of regret. They were able to ensure time was not wasted, and they were able to make sure adequate food intake was being accomplished. This idea of a self-sufficient plan could be useful for us all. We never take the time to really sit down and just enjoy how life is for us. We are constantly dwelling on our past decisions and disappointing ourselves, but how can we create a self-sufficient plan to help motivate us to keep pursuing that ideal self? Rats were able to care for themselves, and create a time efficient plan to help ensure they had food to survive. We can create this self-sufficient plan at a young age and recognize that regret will almost be inevitable, but the way we handle regret is what can drive us for success. Self sufficient plans can be created at any age, but active engagement in reaching the goal is the main way to help avoid regret. We must constantly find ways to improve our quality of life along with adhering to responsibilities that may induce regret in our lifetime. More studies should be conducted about possible coping mechanisms in defeating regret, and these studies should be utilized to possibly find a cure to avoid regret. This is an extremely fascinating subject that needs more studies conducted, so I am looking forward to the future of learning more about regret, and how we can defeat this unpleasant feeling. 

Citations

Davidai, S., & Gilovich, T. (2018). The ideal road not taken: The self-discrepancies involved in 

people's most enduring regrets. Emotion (Washington, D.C.), 18(3), 439–452. 

https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000326

Roese, N. J., & Summerville, A. (2005). What we regret most... and why. Personality & social 

psychology bulletin, 31(9), 1273–1285. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167205274693

Sweis BM, Thomas MJ, Redish AD. Mice learn to avoid regret. PLoS Biol. 2018 Jun 

21;16(6):e2005853. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.2005853. PMID: 29927938; PMCID: PMC6013153.

“The ‘Coulda Regret’ and the Dark Side of the Ideal Self.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, 19 Feb. 2020, 

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/thriving101/202002/the-coulda-regret-and-the-dark-side-the-ideal-self.