Varieties of regret: A debate and partial resolution.

Different interpretations of an apparent temporal pattern to the experience of regret were addressed through joint research. T. Gilovich and V. H. Medvec (1995a) argued that people regret actions more in the short term and inactions more in the long run because the sting of regrettable action diminishes relatively quickly, whereas the pain of regrettable inaction lingers longer. D. Kahneman (1995) disagreed, arguing that people's long-term regrets of inaction are largely wistful and therefore not terribly troublesome. Three studies that examined the emotional profile of action and inaction regrets established considerable common ground. Action regrets were found to elicit primarily "hot" emotions (e.g., anger), and inaction regrets were found to elicit both feelings of wistfulness (e.g., nostalgia) and despair (e.g., misery). Thus, some inaction regrets are indeed wistful (as Kahneman argued), whereas others are troublesome (as Gilovich and Medvec maintained). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To do or not to do: Desirability and consistency mediate judgments of regret.

In 4 studies, the authors demonstrated that when errors associated with action were inconsistent with decision makers' orientation, they were undesirable and produced more regret than did errors associated with inaction. Conversely, when errors associated with action were consistent with decision makers' orientation, they were desirable and produced less regret than did errors associated with inaction. Desirability and consistency mediated this relationship, independent of mutability. These results were obtained when judgments and decisions to act or not act were made in close temporal proximity to one another as well as when participants reflected on their past decisions. The authors provide an analysis of when counterfactuals would and would not be expected to mediate judgments of normality and regret. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Peceived control of life regrets: Good for young and bad for old adults.

Age differences in the associations among intensity of regret, control attributions, and intrusive thoughts were investigated (N = 122, age range = 20-87 years). Given that the opportunities to overcome regrettable behavior decline with age, older adults' attributions of low internal control were expected to serve self-protective functions and facilitate deactivation of regret. In younger adults, by contrast, high levels of internal-control attributions might facilitate active change of regrettable behavior, resulting in low intensities of regret. The results showed that internal-control attributions were related to high intensity of regret and intrusive thoughts in older adults. Among younger adults, however, internal-control attributions were associated with low intensity of regret and low levels of intrusive thoughts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Whatever happened to "What might have been"? Regrets, happiness, and maturity.

Although lost opportunities and mistaken expectations are unpleasant to think and talk about, these experiences may have a role to play in personality development. Drawing on research using narratives of lost possible selves, the authors review the relations of regrettable experiences to 2 important and independent aspects of maturity, happiness and complexity. Thinking about a lost possible self is related to concurrent regrets, distress, and lowered well-being; however, elaborating on a lost possible self is related, concurrently, to complexity and predicts complexity, prospectively, over time. In this article, the authors describe the role that regrettable experiences have in promoting both happiness and complexity. Finally, expanding on previous work, the authors examine potential affordances of happy maturity and suggest psychological capacities that may promote happy maturity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

I'm better off than most other people: The role of social comparisons for coping with regret in young adulthood and old age.

This longitudinal study was designed to examine the importance of social comparisons for coping with regret among young and older adults. It was expected that making downward social comparisons would be associated with a greater reduction in regret intensity over time among older, compared with young, adults. A total of 104 participants took part in this 4-month longitudinal study. The findings suggest that across different comparison targets, making downward (relative to upward) social comparisons was consistently related to reduced regret intensity over time among older adults. Among young adults, making downward social comparisons with personally known others, as opposed to age peers, was associated with lower regret intensity. In addition, older adults increased their reliance on downward social comparisons over time. This age-differential shift toward downward social comparisons further explained age differences in changes of regret intensity over time. Finally, differences in opportunities to undo regrets explained some of the age differences in the use and adaptive value of downward social comparisons. The implications of the findings for understanding and examining pathways to successful development are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Regret resolution, aging, and adapting to loss.

Both theory and empirical evidence suggest that people who have unresolved regrets experience lower levels of well-being than do those who resolve their regrets. In this study, the authors examined the role of regret resolution during bereavement by assessing whether (a) regret resolution would aid in adapting to the death of a loved one and (b) older adults would be more successful at resolving their bereavement-related regrets than would younger adults. Mixed models were run with longitudinal data from an age-heterogeneous sample of 147 men and women who were eventually bereaved after providing care for a loved one through a hospice. As expected, regret resolution contributed to adjustment as indicated by postloss patterns of depressive symptoms, well-being, and rumination; further, older adults were more likely to resolve their regrets than were younger adults. Implications for encouraging regret resolution early in bereavement are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rule abstraction, item memory, and chunking in rat serial-pattern tracking.

Two studies used a stimulus tracking paradigm to test whether rats are sensitive to the rule-based formal properties of structured serial patterns. Hooded rats tracked 16-element patterns of flashing lights by pressing levers under an array of 6 indicator lights. In Experiment 1, rats tracked a pattern similar to one previously used with human subjects and yielded remarkably similar results. More errors and response omissions occurred at boundaries of structural "chunks" than within chunks, and errors often reflected anticipation of the next chunk or extrapolation of the preceding chunk. In Experiment 2, temporal "phrasing" cues encouraged different groups to encode a pattern as a series of either "runs" or "trills." Differential placement of pauses induced rats to encode different rule-based representations of the pattern. Results indicate that under appropriate conditions rats may encode a representation of formal structure when they learn organized response patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The temporal pattern to the experience of regret.

Through telephone surveys, written questionnaires, and face-to-face interviews, it was found that people's biggest regrets tend to involve things they have failed to do in their lives. These divergent findings were reconciled by demonstrating that people's regrets follow a systematic time course: actions cause more pain in the short-term, but inactions are regretted more in the long run. Support for this contention was obtained in 2 scenario experiments that assessed people's beliefs about the short- and long-term regrets of others and in an experiment that asked Ss about their own regrets of action and inaction from 2 time periods. A total of 275 Ss participated in the experiments. Several mechanisms that can account for this temporal pattern are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Regret intensity, diurnal cortisol secretion, and physical health in older individuals: Evidence for directional effects and protective factors.

Two studies were conducted to examine the associations between life regrets and health-relevant variables among older adults. Study 1 explored whether intense experiences of regret would be associated with a health-relevant biological process (i.e., diurnal cortisol secretion) and acute physical problems (N = 183). In Study 2, a group of 103 older adults was followed over a period of 3 months, and changes in cold symptoms and sleep problems were examined. Study 2 incorporated an experimental manipulation, targeted at engaging participants in adaptive social- cognitive processes through writing. The results of Study 1 showed intense life regrets to be associated with a larger volume and a steeper morning rise of cortisol secretion and with higher levels of acute physical symptoms. Study 2 demonstrated that levels of regret intensity generally declined only in the experimental group, whereas certain aspects of regret intensity remained stable in the control group. In addition, the intervention evidenced a beneficial effect on the association between initial regret intensity and increased sleep problems over time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mistakes.

Psychoanalysts frequently make mistakes, but these errors often go unacknowledged because of the analyst's sense of shame. This is regrettable because mistakes are widely recognized to contain new and very useful clinical information. In three clinical vignettes the author describes the kinds of clinical errors he has made: errors associated with a defensively false analytic self, mistakes based on his narcissistic investment in the patient, and errors made in transference/countertransference enactments. These clinical vignettes demonstrate a method of repairing mistakes that involves disclosure, the selective communication of countertransference, and apology. A visual metaphor is used to describe the process of mistake and reparation: The analyst's “mis-take” is a failure to “see” an aspect of the patient's subjectivity. After expressing distress at feeling “unseen,” the patient helps refocus the analyst's vision. Through this mutual process of refocusing a therapeutic symbiosis develops that causes the patient to relax his or her defenses and thereby bring into vision previously unconscious aspects of him or herself, creating an expanded sense of self. Paradoxically what began as a mistake becomes therapeutic through its reparation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptions of time and punctuality in the United States and Brazil.

Conducted 3 cross-national experiments to investigate the hypothesis that differences between Americans (A's) and Brazilians (B's) in punctuality may be explained by divergent standard errors in their perception of time. Results of Exp I show that public clocks were less accurate in Brazil (B) than in the US. Results of Exp II with 205 A's and 202 B's show that watches were less accurate in B, watchless B's were less accurate than watchless A's in estimating the time of day, and B's were less exact than A's in reporting the time on their watches. Exp III, a questionnaire study of 107 A's and 91 B's, found that B's were more often late for appointments and social gatherings, were more flexible in their definitions of "early" and "late," and expressed less regret over being late than A's. However, A's had more negative overall impressions of a person who is frequently late and rated punctuality as a more important trait in a businessperson and friend than did B's. Thus, standards of timeliness may be broader and less salient for B's than for A's. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Impact of Job Complexity and Performance Measurement on the Temporal Consistency, Stability, and Test-Retest Reliability of Employee Job Performance Ratings.

Although research has shown that individual job performance changes over time, the extent of such changes is unknown. In this article, the authors define and distinguish between the concepts of temporal consistency, stability, and test-retest reliability when considering individual job performance ratings over time. Furthermore, the authors examine measurement type (i.e., subjective and objective measures) and job complexity in relation to temporal consistency, stability, and test-retest reliability. On the basis of meta-analytic results, the authors found that the test-retest reliability of these ratings ranged from .83 for subjective measures in low-complexity jobs to .50 for objective measures in high-complexity jobs. The stability of these ratings over a 1-year time lag ranged from .85 to .67. The analyses also reveal that correlations between performance measures decreased as the time interval between performance measurements increased, but the estimates approached values greater than zero. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The inaction effect in the psychology of regret.

Previous research showed that decisions to act (i.e., actions) produce more regret than decisions not to act (i.e., inactions). This previous research focused on decisions made in isolation and ignored that decisions are often made in response to earlier outcomes. The authors show in 4 experiments that these prior outcomes may promote action and hence make inaction more abnormal. They manipulated information about a prior outcome. As hypothesized, when prior outcomes were positive or absent, people attributed more regret to action than to inaction. However, as predicted and counter to previous research, following negative prior outcomes, more regret was attributed to inaction, a finding that the authors label the inaction effect. Experiment 4, showing differential effects for regret and disappointment, demonstrates the need for emotion-specific predictions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Error Assessment for Spectral Representation Method in Wind Velocity Field Simulation

Stochastic wind velocity fields are usually simulated as N-variate stationary Gaussian processes by using the spectral representation method (SRM). However, the temporal statistics estimated from one SRM-simulated sample wind process cannot coincide with the target characteristics; the disagreements can be described by the bias and stochastic errors. For controlling the errors efficiently, this paper assesses the errors produced by both the Cholesky decomposition-based SRM (CSRM) and the eigendecomposition-based SRM (ESRM). The SRM is revisited first, followed by computing the temporal mean value, correlation function, power spectral density (PSD), and standard deviation of the SRM-simulated wind process. It is shown that the temporal correlation function and standard deviation are Gaussian, while the temporal PSD is non-Gaussian. Further, as mathematical expectations and standard deviations of the corresponding temporal estimations, the bias errors and stochastic errors of all the first- and second-order statistics are obtained in closed form for both the CSRM and the ESRM; the closed-form solutions are then verified in the numerical example. More importantly, this example is employed for taking a clear look at and making a comparison between the stochastic errors produced by the CSRM and by the ESRM; observations suggest that (1) in sum, the ESRM produces smaller stochastic errors than the CSRM and (2) if the ESRM is employed, stochastic errors will be distributed to each component of the wind process in a more uniform pattern. Moreover, some practical approaches are proposed to control the stochastic errors.     

Equivalent effects of grouping by time, voice, and location on response timing in verbal serial memory.

The grouping of list items is known to improve serial memory accuracy and constrain the nature of temporal errors. A recent study (M. T. Maybery, F. B. R. Parmentier, & D. M. Jones, 2002) showed that grouping results in a temporal organization of the participants' responses that mimics the list structure but not the timing of its presentation. Here the authors tested the prediction that the temporal grouping of responses should yield the same pattern of response time (RT) irrespective of the method of grouping at presentation. Comparing temporal, location, and voice grouping, the results show that although these methods impact on recall accuracy to varying degrees, all 3 conditions produce significant and equivalent peaks in RT at the first position of each group. The RT data were accurately simulated through a model based on ACT-R's (J. R. Anderson & M. Matessa, 1997) basic principles. Altogether, the data suggest that the temporal organization of responses in verbal serial recall results from (a) declarative knowledge about the list's structure that is independent of the perceptual means by which grouping is induced at presentation and (b) the level of activation of the items per se. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Emotion and Preventive Health Behavior: Worry, Regret, and Influenza Vaccination": Correction.

Reports an error in the original article by G. B. Chapman and E. J. Coups (Health Psychology, 2006, Vol 25[1], pp. 82-90). Table 2 contained an error. On p. 85, the values in the "Anticipated worry" row were aligned incorrectly. The corrected table is provided. (The following abstract originally appeared in 2006-01035-011.) The role of worry, regret, and perceived risk in preventive health decisions was explored in a longitudinal questionnaire study on influenza vaccination among 428 university employees. The study yielded 3 main findings. First, ratings of anticipated worry and regret were stronger predictors of vaccination than perceived risk and mediated the effect of risk on vaccination. Second, the anticipated level of emotions differed systematically from experienced emotions, such that vaccinated individuals anticipated more regret and less worry than they actually experienced. Third, anticipated and experienced emotions had implications for subsequent vaccination decisions. Those who did not vaccinate in the 1st year but had high levels of worry and regret were likely to be vaccinated the following year. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From chump to champ: People's appraisals of their earlier and present selves.

The authors present and test a theory of temporal self-appraisal. According to the theory, people can maintain their typically favorable self-regard by disparaging their distant and complimenting their recent past selves. This pattern of appraisals should be stronger for more important attributes because of their greater impact on self-regard and stronger for self-ratings than for ratings of other people. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that participants are more critical of distant past selves than of current selves, and Study 3 showed that this effect is obtained even when concurrent evaluations indicate no actual improvement. Studies 4 and 5 revealed that people perceived greater improvement for self than for acquaintances and siblings over the same time period. Study 6 provided support for the predicted effects of temporal distance and attribute importance on people's evaluation of past selves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Resource Slack and Propensity to Discount Delayed Investments of Time Versus Money.

The authors demonstrate that people discount delayed outcomes as a result of perceived changes over time in supplies of slack. Slack is the perceived surplus of a given resource available to complete a focal task. The present research shows that, in general, people expect slack for time to be greater in the future than in the present. Typically, this expectation of growth of slack in the future is more pronounced for time than for money. In 7 experiments, the authors demonstrate that systematic temporal shifts of perceived slack determine the extent and the pattern of delay discounting, including hyperbolic discounting. They use this framework to explain differential propensity to delay investments and receipts of time and money. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)