Learning to Use Regret: Studies in the Negative Emotions and How to Use Them

Researchers at Kellogg examine the so called negative emotions: anger, anxiety, boredom, disappointment, fear, guilt, jealousy, and sadness. They wanted to find out whether people believed the negative emotions were beneficial, damaging, or somewhere in between. The team found that regret, like several other negative emotions, was viewed both favorably and unfavorably. People rated regret more favorably than unfavorably. Only jealousy was considered unambiguously negative. Their work shows that regret is a powerful force in human life. Far from being negative, regret is actually recognized by human brains as a positive influence on future behavior. Regret’s important messages can be applied in everything from marketing to decision-making for the future. The respondents stated that regret helped them make future decisions more than other negative emotions. Regret scored the highest of all negative emotions in the five functions of emotion—to help in making sense of the world, avoid future behaviors, gain insight, achieve social harmony, and improve approach. The team examined eleven other studies regarding regret, in which people ranked the parts of life they regret the most. Education was the biggest inducer of regret, followed by career, romance, parenting, the self, and leisure. The rankings turned out to be remarkably consistent across studies of people in different age groups and locations…


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