Reducing cognitive biases like escalation of commitment to a failing course of action is just one way that regret, by making us feel worse, can help us do better. A look at the research shows that regret, handled correctly, offers three broad benefits. It can sharpen our decision-making skills. It can elevate our performance on a range of tasks. And it can strengthen our sense of meaning and connectedness.
1. Regret can improve decisions.
To begin understanding regret’s ameliorative properties, imagine the following scenario.
During the pandemic of 2020–21, you hastily purchased a guitar, but you never got around to playing it. Now it’s taking up space in your apartment—and you could use a little cash. So, you decide to sell it.
As luck would have it, your neighbor Maria is in the market for a used guitar. She asks how much you want for your instrument.
Suppose you bought the guitar for $500. (It’s acoustic.) No way you can charge Maria that much for a used item. It would be great to get $300, but that seems steep. So, you suggest $225 with the plan to settle for $200.
When Maria hears your $225 price, she accepts instantly, then hands you your money.
Are you feeling regret?
Probably. Many people do, even more so in situations with stakes greater than the sale of a used guitar. When others accept our first offer without hesitation or pushback, we often kick ourselves for not asking for more.[2] However, acknowledging one’s regrets in such situations—inviting, rather than repelling, this aversive emotion—can improve our decisions in the future. For example, in 2002, Adam Galinsky, now at Columbia University, and three other social psychologists studied negotiators who’d had their first offer accepted. They asked these negotiators to rate how much better they could have done if only they’d made a higher offer. The more they regretted their decision, the more time they spent preparing for a subsequent negotiation.[3] A related study by Galinsky, University of California, Berkeley’s, Laura Kray, and Ohio University’s Keith Markman found that when people look back at previous negotiations and think about what they regretted not doing—for example, not extending a strong first offer—they made better decisions in later negotiations. What’s more, these regret-enhanced decisions spread the benefits widely. During their subsequent encounters, regretful negotiators expanded the size of the pie and secured themselves a larger slice. The very act of contemplating what they hadn’t done previously widened the possibilities of what they could do next and provided a script for future interactions.[4]
The main effect, several studies show, is on our “decision hygiene.”?[5] Leaning into regret improves our decision-making process—because the stab of negativity slows us down. We collect more information. We consider a wider range of options. We take more time to reach a conclusion. Because we step more carefully, we’re less likely to fall through cognitive trapdoors like confirmation bias.[6] One study of CEOs found that encouraging business leaders to reflect on their regrets exerted a “positive influence on their future decisions.”[7]
Barry Schwartz, one of the first social psychologists to take regret seriously, explains that this unpleasant feeling “serves several important functions.” Regret can “emphasize the mistakes we made in arriving at a decision, so that, should a similar situation arise in the future, we won’t make the same mistakes.”[8]
This theme ran through many of the entries in the World Regret Survey, including this one from a parent with a long memory:
I yelled at my daughter when she was five, on the way to school, when she spilled some yogurt on her uniform. I really laid into her and I have regretted it ever since. She didn’t deserve that. I upset her so much, and for what? A bit of a stain on her uniform? I will never stop regretting that moment. I have never yelled at her in that way again. So I learned from that mistake, but I wish I could take that moment back.
This parent still feels bad about past behavior, but has used that feeling to make different decisions going forward and never scream at the child that way again.
While some of us parents are still trying to improve our decision-making, the capacity for regret might be a fundamental part of how our sons and daughters learn to reason and make decisions themselves. Irish researchers, across several experiments, have shown that children’s decision-making capabilities improve tremendously once they cross the developmental threshold, around age seven, that allows them to experience regret. “The development of regret allows children to learn from previous decisions in order to adaptively switch their choices,” write Eimear O’Connor, Teresa McCormack, and Aidan Feeney.[9]
Our cognitive apparatus is designed, at least in part, to sustain us in the long term rather than balm us in the near term. We need the ability to regret our poor decisions—to feel bad about them—precisely so we can improve those decisions in the future.
2. Regret can boost performance.
Clairvoyants smash egg pools.
That’s an anagram for Psychologists love anagrams. And it’s true. Anagrams are a staple of psychological research. Usher participants into a room. Give them some words or phrases to rearrange into other words or phrases. Then manipulate their mood, their mindset, their environment, or any other variable to see how it affects their performance.