The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward

Psychotherapists define regret as “the unpleasant feeling associated with some action or inaction a person has taken which has led to a state of affairs that he or she wishes were different” (17). Management theorists claim that “Regret is created by a comparison between the actual outcome and that outcome that would have occurred had the decision maker made a different choice” (17). Philosophers define regret as “a feeling of unpleasure associated with a thought of the past, together with the identification of an object and the announcement of an inclination to behave in a certain way in the future” (17). Pink points out that because the definition of regret is elusive, it could be better understood as a process.

Pink observes that our minds can visit the past and future—recounting events that happened in the past and creating hypothetical situations that could happen in the future. We think about what happened in the past and how things could be different now and in the future if a different decision had been made. Pink refers to this “combination of time travel and fabulism” as a “human superpower” (18), “a marker of a healthy, maturing mind” (19). Likewise, a 2004 study in which participants were asked to choose one of two computerized roulette wheels to spin found that the inability to feel regret is a “sign of brain damage” (19). While one group of participants felt regret upon learning that they chose the losing roulette wheel, another group did not feel regret. The latter had lesions on the orbitofrontal cortex of their brains and were unable to understand the concept of regret.

Pink differentiates between regret and other negative emotions such as sadness. He points out that a negative emotion only becomes regret when the person experiencing the emotion revisits the past and contrasts a negative outcome with what could have been. He also frames regret as involving self-blame; the idea that a negative outcome is the fault of the person experiencing the emotion, not anyone else. This self-blame makes regret more painful than a negative emotion like disappointment.

Pink underscores that regret is common. In the American Regret Project, 4,489 people were asked how often they look back on their lives and wish they had done things differently; 82 percent of participants indicated they experience regret occasionally. Similarly, in 1984, social scientist Susan Shimanoff recorded everyday conversations of undergraduates and married couples and analyzed them to identify words describing emotions. Shimanoff found that the most common negative emotion she identified was regret. Likewise, a 2008 study by social psychologists Neal Roese, Colleen Saffrey, and Amy Summerville found that participants experienced regret more than other negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, boredom, disappointment, fear, guilt, jealousy, and sadness. Furthermore, a 2016 study that tracked the choices and behavior of more than a hundred Swedish participants found that “regrets were omnipresent and spread across every realm of life, leading the study’s authors to declare that regret ‘constitutes an essential component of the human experience’” (24).

Less than three years after recording the song about no regrets that made her famous, Edith Piaf’s final words before her death were “Every damn thing you do in this life you have to pay for” (26). Pink believes that if Piaf had allowed herself to experience and confront her regrets, she would have discovered that “Every damn thing you do in life can pay off for you” (26).

Pink examines the facial expressions of the 2016 winners of the Summer Olympics women’s individual cycling road race captured in a photograph after the race. He observes that the athlete who won the bronze medal (third place) looked happier in the picture than the silver medalist (second place). He attributes this contrast to the process of mentally traveling back in time to conceive of alternative outcomes. Logicians call this process “counterfactual thinking” (33), conceiving of possible outcomes that are counter to what actually happened. In a 1992 study of the Summer Games in Barcelona, Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Medvec of Cornell University and Scott Madey of the University of Toledo collected videos of about three dozen bronze and silver medalists. Participants in the study observed the athletes’ facial expressions immediately after their events and on the podium, rating them on a 1-10 scale of agony to ecstasy. The researchers found that athletes who finished third appeared happier than those who finished second. While bronze medalists were rated 7.1, silver medalists were rated only 4.8. Researchers concluded that the reason for this disparity is counterfactual thinking. Pink differentiates between two types of counterfactual thinking: At Leasts and If Onlys. At Leasts focus on how circumstances could have been worse whereas If Onlys focus on how they could have been better. Pink concludes that silver medalists are more likely to experience If Onlys while bronze medalists are more likely to experience At Leasts, and At Leasts make people feel better. However, If Onlys outnumber At Leasts. Pink suggests that the reason for this oddity is that humans are “programmed for survival,” and If Onlys can ultimately improve our lives (38).

Pink begins this chapter with the suggestion that bad decisions are compounded when we continue to repeat them. The experience of regret can decrease our likelihood of repeating mistakes.

Pink describes three benefits of regret. Firstly, he notes that regret improves decision-making. For example, if one were selling a guitar and proposed a price of $225, this person may feel regret that they did not offer the guitar for a higher price if the prospective buyer readily accepts the price of $225. However, by experiencing regret, the seller may spend more time preparing for future negotiations and ultimately make better decisions. Pink cites a 2002 study performed by Adam Galinsky that found that the more people regret their decisions, the more time they spend “preparing for a subsequent negotiation” (42). Pink explains that because regret slows us down, we can “collect more information” and “consider a wider range of options” (43). In other words, we become more careful.

The same principle is applied to decisions pertaining to human interaction and personal relationships. One participant in the World Regret Survey regretted yelling at her daughter and upsetting her merely because she had spilled yogurt on her school uniform. Because of this, she learned from her mistake and is careful not to yell at her daughter for minor reasons going forward.

Secondly, regret can “boost performance” (45). In an experiment conducted by Keith Markman and two colleagues, participants were given ten anagrams to solve. Markman and his colleagues told participants that they only found half the available words. They asked the participants to imagine how they could have performed better, which caused them to ponder If Onlys. Although the If Onlys made this group of participants feel worse, they performed better on the next round than another group that had been encouraged to imagine At Leasts. Although regret can boost performance, Pink notes that ruminating on a regret can have the opposite effect.

Thirdly, regret can “deepen meaning” (47). Pink explains that he occasionally wonders what his life would have been like had he not attended Northwestern University for college. These musings make him feel “more, not less, satisfied with the experience” (47). By imagining alternatives, Pink realizes that his college experience at Northwestern was “integral” to the “full story” of his life (47). In a 2010 study by social scientists Galinsky, Kray, Roese, and others, participating Northwestern graduates were asked to reflect counterfactually about how their life could have been different had they attended a different university or had different friends, and found that the “actual choice somehow felt more significant” and that “[c]ounterfactual reflection endows both major life experiences and relationships with greater meaning” (97). Other studies have shown that counterfactual thinking adds more meaning to the events in people’s lives.

Pink mentions a participant from the World Regret Survey who regretted resisting her grandmother’s attempts to connect with her. Because of this, the participant now seeks out connections and bought her father a subscription to StoryWorth, which sends the recipient a weekly email with a question to respond to and, after a year, compiles the responses into a book. This World Regret Survey participant disagrees with the mantra “No regrets,” and stated in an interview, “If you don’t make mistakes, how are you going to learn and grow?” (50).

Pink describes two views on feelings. The first view is “Feeling is for ignoring,” that emotions are hindrances that should be suppressed (51). Pink points out that suppressed emotions can lead to physical problems because the emotions become intensified. Likewise, failure to acknowledge feelings impedes growth.

The second view is “Feeling is for feeling” (52), which suggests that we should trust our feelings because they are “the one real truth” (53). Pink points out that this perspective is dangerous when the feelings in question are negative emotions, such as regret, because too much regret can be detrimental to one’s health: “Excessive regret is linked to an array of mental health problems—most prominently depression and anxiety, but also post-traumatic stress disorder” (53).

However, the third view is the healthiest: “Feeling is for thinking” (53). This view involves confronting emotions rather than avoiding or wallowing in them. By experiencing regret occasionally and in small amounts, one can improve future behavior (53). Pink notes that when we think about our regrets, we should frame them as not a “judgment of our underlying character” but rather an “evaluation of a particular behavior in a particular situation” (53). Regrets should also be framed as opportunities to make better decisions, improve one’s performance, and develop a deeper sense of meaning than outright threats.

Pink describes the origins of kintsugi, a Japanese art form in which a piece of broken pottery is repaired with lacquer mixed with gold (among other materials). This art form “considers the breaks and subsequent repairs part of the vessel’s history, fundamental elements of its being” (55). In other words, the breaks are considered uniquely beautiful, valuable, in themselves. Pink notes that the same premise can be true of people. He connects the image of kintsugi with Mary Abbott, the American rider who lost the 2016 Olympic road race in its final moments, finishing in fourth place. Abbott stated, “If you have a broken heart, it means you have done something big enough and important enough and valuable enough to have a broken heart” (56).