Regret

Cover of Regret, Human Forces No. 13

Human Forces No. 13 · 21 pages · 26 sources

Do people regret what they did or what they did not do?

In the short run people regret actions more; over a lifetime regret shifts towards things not done. In the founding study, 84 per cent of people's biggest life regrets were inactions, but a 2023 replication with about 2,600 regrets found lifetime regrets split close to evenly, so the shift is real but smaller than once thought.

What the report found

  1. Regret needs an alternative. It comes from imagining a better outcome that was within our control. Patients with damage to one region at the front of the brain felt disappointment at losing a gamble but no regret.
  2. Action and inaction leave different regrets. In the founding studies, people regretted actions most in the short run and inactions most over a lifetime. Large replications support the shift over time, but not the size of the lifetime gap.
  3. We regret most where we could still change things. Across nine studies, education and career accounted for more than half of all regrets people named.
  4. Fear of regret shapes buying. People who imagined regret chose well known brands and bought on sale rather than wait. The UAE's consumer rules now give shoppers a refund if a promised discount arrives within 30 days.
  5. We overestimate it. People who just missed a train expected to feel more regret than people who missed it by a mile, but felt about the same, and blamed circumstances rather than themselves.

What is inside

  1. What regret is and why we have it
  2. Doing and not doing
  3. Regret and what we buy
  4. Regret across life
  5. When regret misleads
  6. Living with regret

Plus a map of where regret shapes choices, two debates set out side by side and a table grading each common claim.

Who it is for

For marketers, product and service designers, financial advisers, coaches and anyone who helps people make decisions they will live with.

How we work

Human Forces reports explain one deep human need: what it is and why we have it, the mechanisms through which it works, how it shows up across life, and when it misleads us. Every claim is graded, and where researchers disagree, as they do on whether we regret inaction more, both sides are set out before we say where we stand.

Cite this report

The Why We Project (2026) Regret: Living with the road not taken. Human Forces No. 13. Dubai: Why We Tech Ltd. Available at: thewhyweproject.com