If you want to bum out 370 Americans, call them up and ask them what they regret. Make them explain it in detail. Keep them on the phone for 20 minutes, discussing their regrets. Then, in exchange for ruining their evenings, send them five bucks in the mail.
That’s what a couple of researchers did recently. The goal was to find out what the typical American regrets. It turns out, typical Americans have a whole list of regrets. Here’s a breakdown:
Topping the list is romance, though there’s a sharp gender divide: While 44 percent of women said their deepest regret involved matters of the heart, only 19 percent of men fretted about love gone wrong. Men were more likely (34 percent) to regret work-related choices -- the flubbed project, the job not taken. People also regretted lousy financial choices (giving it all to Madoff) and crummy parenting decisions (skipping ballet recital to watch the game).
Previous research has found that people tend to regret most the actions that are reversible. We really regret things we could, in theory, still change. When a particular action can’t be undone, we tend to get over it. Somewhat surprisingly, another study found that people value regret more than other negative emotions, perhaps because the memory of a past screw-up helps us make better decisions in the future. In theory, anyway.
For regret researchers, the most notable finding here is that romance is what people regret the most. That contradicts previous research that found that educational choices were the most regrettable (majoring in journalism, say). In the past, though, the subjects were usually college students, who are understandably preoccupied with education. Bottom line: Don’t worry so much about school, kids. You’ll grow up and find new stuff to feel bad about.
(Regrettably, the full text is not available online. You can read the abstract here. The authors are Mike Morrison and Neal J. Roese and their paper was published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science. The graphic is courtesy of Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.)