Los Angeles, CA (June 8, 2011) Regrets—we've all had a few. Although too many regrets can interfere with life and mental health, a healthy amount of regret can motivate us to improve our lives, say researchers Mike Morrison of the University of Illinois and Neal Roese of Northwestern University in the current issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science (published by SAGE).
The researchers telephoned a representative sample of nearly 400 Americans to ask them about what they regret. The most frequent regrets of Americans are about love, education, and work. Romantic regrets—America's most common—focused on lost chances for potential romances, and relationships that did not live up to their potential.
The other common regrets for Americans involved family, education, career, finances, and parenting. Women were more likely to have regrets about relationships (romance, family), and men were more likely to have regrets about work (career and education). It was the lack of romantic relationships and the lack of higher education that were regretted most.
At first, people tend to regret the things they've done more than the opportunities they didn't take. But with time, people come to regret more keenly the chances they let go past. Over their lives, Americans had more regret about the times they've lacked opportunities than about the choices they've made.
"We tend to regret matters that are most important to us," said Morrison, "people crave strong, stable social relationships and are unhappy when they lack them." Regret can be painful, but it can also be useful. "Some people say they try to live life without regret and, I think that's being unfair to the human condition," said Roese, "if we try to squeeze regrets away, we're sacrificing a bit of our humanity."
The article "Regrets of the Typical American: Findings From a Nationally Representative Sample" in Social Psychological and Personality Science, is available free for a limited time at http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/02/28/1948550611401756.full.pdf+html.
Contacts: Mike Morrison, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois. email: mmorris8@psych.illinois.edu Phone: 217-359-3591.
Neal Roese, Professor of Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. email: n-roese@kellogg.northwestern.edu Phone: 847-491-7109
Social Psychological and Personality Science is a cutting-edge journal of succinct reports of research in social and personality psychology. SPPS is sponsored by a consortium of the world's leading organizations in social and personality psychology representing over 7,000 scholars on six continents worldwide. http://spps.sagepub.com
SAGE is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets. Since 1965, SAGE has helped inform and educate a global community of scholars, practitioners, researchers, and students spanning a wide range of subject areas including business, humanities, social sciences, and science, technology, and medicine. An independent company, SAGE has principal offices in Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC. www.sagepublications.com
Journal
Social Psychological and Personality Science