Research by Dr. Paul Fromson, Professor of Psychology, and Elon alum Dana Neumann ’07 has been accepted for presentation at the Eastern Psychological Association conference in Boston, March 13-16. The study, “Anticipatory Regret: Temporal Patterns and Psychological Mechanisms,” grows out of earlier studies of regret. Most studies have focused on consequential regret, the regret people experience as an actual
consequence of their choices. Such
research suggests that in the short-term aftermath, people more often regret
the actions they took than their inactions. But with the passage of time, they more likely come to
regret the actions they failed to take.
The current study focused on anticipatory regret, the
remorse we imagine we will feel if we do [or fail to do] a certain action, and
explored whether a comparable time-frame effect exists. That is, when thinking about the
immediate future do people’s anticipated regrets focus more on the actions they
might take, but when thinking about the more distant future, does the focus
shift more to the likelihood of regretting things we will fail to do? Results support that such a temporal
pattern exists and some psychological factors involved with this are suggested.