Understanding Regret
See also: Keeping Your Mind HealthyEdith Piaf sang "Non, je ne regrette rien" [No, I regret nothing], but can everyone say the same? Or is the mere fact that she had to say it a suggestion that feeling regret is an important part of being human?
Regret is the feeling of disappointment or sadness that we have about poor decisions, or things that have gone wrong in the past. It is a very particular sorrow, because it is associated with things that are beyond our power to repair or right. These decisions or events are gone, and we cannot amend them.
Some, like Piaf, might suggest that this means that regret is useless. We should move on, and consider the present and the future, not the past. However, as our other pages on negative emotions make clear, no emotion is entirely without purpose. This page explains more about why we feel regret, and what we can do about it.
What is Regret?
Regret is an emotion that is closely associated with sorrow, and also about something that happened in the past (see box).
Defining regret
regret n. sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one's control or power to repair.
Source: Merriam-Webster's Dictionary
regret n. an emotional response to remembrance of a past state, condition, or experience that one wishes had been different.
Source: American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology
Regret is very much not an emotion dealing with the present—except in so far as the feeling itself is in the present. We can tell this because of the existence of the phrase "instant regret" (if regret dealt with the present we would not need to use the word 'instant' to show something different). Regret is also not an emotion that drives action to amend the immediate situation.
Regret is about things that cannot be changed because they are outside our control.
You can therefore feel regret for things that happened long ago, such as the breakdown of a relationship, or losing touch with a friend.
In her Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown includes regret in the list of 'places we go when things don't go as planned'. It is therefore linked with feelings like disappointment, boredom and frustration. However, she distinguishes it from guilt and shame, which are included among 'places we go when we fall short'.
This sense of things being beyond our power to repair makes regret a very poignant emotion.
It is a negative emotion, but not necessarily as unpleasant as some of the negative emotions that drive us towards action. Indeed, in some circumstances, regret can almost be bitter-sweet, because there is a sense of what we should have done, without the need to actually do it now, or live with the consequences of having done it then. It can therefore be associated with nostalgia, or looking back at the past with a sense that it was better than the present, and without necessarily seeing all the negatives that you saw at the time.
A cautionary tale
American poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote a poem called Maud Muller, which celebrates regret. It tells the story of a young girl from a farm, the Maud Muller of the title, who meets a judge from the nearby town one day. Both are attracted to each other, but never voice their thoughts and move on to other relationships. Both also spend the rest of their lives looking back regretfully on their meeting, and what might have been.
The poem contains the line:
"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'"
However, a younger poet, Bret Harte, wrote a sequel parodying Maud Muller, about what might have happened had Maud and the judge got married. Let's just say that things do not end happily. Harte parodied Whittier's lines with:
"If, of all words of tongue and pen, / The saddest are, 'It might have been,' / More sad are these we daily see: / 'It is, but hadn't ought to be.'"
Source: Wikipedia
Regret and Culture
Many emotions are known to be experienced in very similar ways by people around the world, regardless of culture. Fear, for example, is pretty much universal, and also characterised by a very clear facial expression.
However, regret is not characterised by clear facial expressions, and nor is it clear that it is experienced in the same way everywhere. Indeed, there is quite a lot of evidence that how we feel regret, and what types of things we regret, differ with culture, gender and age.
For example:
Women are a lot more likely than men to feel regrets about leaving past relationships;
People in individualist cultures like the United States are more likely to feel regret than those living in collectivist cultures (where families have more control over individual lives); and
Younger people are more likely to see regret as a positive thing.
The Purpose of Regret
If regret does not drive action, we might ask whether it has any purpose in evolutionary terms.
The answer is that you may not be able to change the outcome or events that have caused the regret. However, feelings of regret can be an important way of guiding future behaviour. This idea has been formulated as regret theory (see box).
Regret theory
Regret theory was proposed in 1982 by economists Graham Loomes and Robert Sugden.
They suggested that if you had done something in the past that had led to feelings of regret, you would avoid taking similar action in future, to avoid feeling regret again.
For example, suppose you bought something on the recommendation of a friend, and then later wished that you had not made that purchase (perhaps it was too expensive, or did not meet your needs). Another time, you might avoid seeking or taking advice from that friend, to avoid further feelings of regret.
Regret theory implies that regret has two elements: a wish that you had made a different decision, and self-recrimination because you made an error of judgement.
There is also evidence that people are more likely to regret actions taken in the recent past. Over a longer time period, they are more likely to regret actions not taken, and therefore opportunities missed. This might lead us to take more opportunities in future. Regret may therefore be a useful evolutionary way to drive us towards change and opportunities, and away from passivity, especially as we grow older and are more likely to get 'stuck in our ways'. This could provide useful advantages to humans as a species.
The Downside of Regret
Regret does have some negative aspects.
Because it is not associated with the need to take action, it can become possible to descend into long-term regrets and self-recriminations that can paralyse future actions. This is often a precursor to conditions like depression. Regret can also cause chronic stress, and prevent people from recovering from stressful life events.
Regret can also be a powerful driver of negative actions on a personal level (see box).
The negative power of regret
When the lottery started in the UK, Amy often bought a ticket, and always chose four identical numbers. However, she was careful to vary the final two numbers, and often chose to have random numbers for those.
When a friend asked why, she explained that she did not buy a ticket every week. She therefore wanted a safeguard against not buying a ticket in the week that her numbers came up.
"I can live with losing out on four numbers," she said seriously. "It's not that much money. But I don't think I could manage five or six."
This sounds extreme, but the Harvard Newsletter once featured a story about a man in Liverpool who always bought a lottery ticket, using the same six numbers. One week, he forgot, and his numbers came up.
He was unable to cope with the regret for the missed opportunity, and committed suicide. Perhaps Amy had a point with her two random numbers.
There is some evidence that possible outcomes that can easily be visualised are regretted more. This might explain the lottery ticket issue: the man from Liverpool could clearly see how much money he would have won and the life-changing nature of the win. Similarly, people are more likely to regret missing promotion in their own organisation, where they are clear about the likely outcomes, than not getting a job in a new organisation, where they have little information about what 'might have been'.
Coping with Regret
There are various actions that you can take to cope with feeling regret. These include:
Use it to drive action, in line with regret theory. Look at what you might learn from the situation, and ensure that you don't make the same mistakes twice.
Use potential regret to manage risks. Consider how you would feel about possible outcomes as a way to support your decision-making.
There is more about this in our page on Risk Management.
Let it go. Try to learn from your mistakes, but don't dwell on them. If there is nothing that you can do to mend the situation, then just let it go.
Be realistic about what was possible at the time. Don't beat yourself up for mistakes that you could not help. Hindsight is a wonderful thing—but it is not realistic to expect to predict the future, and you should not regret events that you could not have predicted.
A Final Thought
All negative emotions have a function in life.
Without the darkness, we would not appreciate the light—and regret tells us about what we appreciated and have lost. However, wallowing in regret can turn into a form of darkness in its own right. This is an emotion that needs to be managed carefully.