Abstract
In this paper we test hypotheses about the importance of life stage in moderating the relationship between acknowledging regrets and concurrent well-being, as well as how changes in women’s social roles during the post-war period affected the content of the regrets they develop. We examine the relationship between women’s life regrets and life satisfaction, and the content of life regrets, using data from 313 predominately white, college-educated women who graduated from the same university in the United States in 1951/2 (age 66), 1972 (age 46) and 1992 (age 26). Analyses revealed that the more types of regrets middle-aged and older women reported (the 1972 and 1951/2 cohorts respectively), the lower their life satisfaction; this pattern did not hold for the youngest women. In terms of the specific content of regrets, exact logistic regressions showed that women in the oldest cohort reported more regrets about prioritizing family over career compared with the later cohorts. Overall, few women reported regrets about prioritizing their careers over families; however, women in the middle cohort were most likely to report these regrets. Results are discussed in terms of both developmental and socio-historical frameworks.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abramowitz, S. I., & Nassi, A. J. (1981). Keeping the faith: Psychosocial correlates of activism persistence into middle adulthood. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 10, 507–523. doi:10.1007/BF02087943.
Acker, J. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gendered organizations. Gender and Society, 4, 139–158. doi:10.1177/089124390004002002.
Agresti, A. (2002). Categorical data analysis. NewYork: Wiley-Interscience.
Beck, A., Ward, C., Mendelson, M., Mock, J., & Erbaugh, J. (1961). An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 561–571.
Bernard, J. (1983). Ground rules for marriage: Perspectives on the pattern of an era. In M. Horner (Ed.), The challenge of change (pp. 89–115). New York: Plenum Publishing Corporation.
Boyatzis, R. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Brandtstädter, J. (1999). Sources of resilience in the aging self. In T. M. Hess & F. Blanchard-Fields (Eds.), Social cognition and aging (pp. 123–141). San Diego: Academic Press. doi:10.1016/B978-012345260-3/50007-0.
Butler, R. N. (1963). The life review: An interpretation of reminiscence in the aged. Psychiatry, 26, 65–76.
Butler, R. N. (1974). Successful aging and the role of the life review. Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 22, 529–535.
Carr, D. (2004). Psychological well-being across three cohorts: A response to shifting work-family opportunities and expectations? In O. G. Brim, C. D. Ryff, & R. C. Kessler (Eds.), How healthy are we?: A national study of well-being at midlife (pp. 452–484). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chafetz, J. S., & Dworkin, A. G. (1987). In the face of threat: Organized antifeminism in comparative perspective. Gender and Society, 1, 33–60.
Cohen, B. H. (2001). Explaining psychological statistics. New York: Wiley.
Cole, E. R., Zucker, A. N., & Ostrove, J. M. (1998). Political participation and feminist consciousness among women activists of the 1960s. Political Psychology, 19, 349–371. doi:10.1111/0162-895X.00108.
Diener, E., Emmons, R. A., Larson, R. J., & Griffin, S. (1985). The satisfaction with life scale. Journal of Personality Assessment, 49, 71–75. doi:10.1207/s15327752jpa4901_13.
Dijkstra, P., & Barelds, D. P. H. (2008). What Dutch women of different ages regret most. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 1663–1667. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2008.07.007.
Duncan, L. E., & Agronick, G. S. (1995). The intersection of life stage and social events: Personality and life outcomes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 558–568. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.69.3.558.
Ehrenreich, B., & English, D. (1989). Blowing the whistle on the “Mommy track”. Ms, 18(1–2), 56–58.
Elder, G., Clipp, E., Brown, J., Martin, L., & Friedman, H. (2009). The lifelong mortality risks of World War II experiences. Research on Aging, 31, 391–412. doi:10.1177/0164027509333447.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. (1980). Discrimination because of sex under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as Amended. Washington, DC: EEOC.
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society. New York: Norton. Originally published, 1950.
Erikson, E. H. (1980). Identity and the life cycle. New York: Norton. Originally published, 1959.
Erikson, E. H., Erikson, J. M., & Kivnick, H. Q. (1986). Vital involvements in old age. New York: Norton.
Ginzberg, E., & Associates. (1966). Educated American women. New York: Columbia University Press.
Heckhausen, J., & Schulz, R. (1995). A life-span theory of control. Psychological Review, 102, 284–304. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.102.2.284.
Hochschild, A., & Machung, A. (2003). The second shift. New York: Penguin Group.
Jokisaari, M. (2003). Regret appraisals, age, and subjective wellbeing. Journal of Research in Personality, 37, 487–503. doi:10.1016/S0092-6566(03)00033-3.
Jokisaari, M. (2004). Regrets and subjective well-being: A life course approach. Journal of Adult Development, 11, 281–288. doi:10.1023/B:JADE.0000044531.11605.d5.
Kinnier, R. T., & Metha, A. T. (1989). Regrets and priorities at three stages of life. Counseling and Values, 33, 182–193.
Landman, J., & Manis, J. D. (1992). What might have been: Counterfactual thought concerning personal decisions. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 473–477. doi:10.1111/j.2044-8295.1992.tb02453.x.
Landman, J., Vandewater, E. A., Stewart, A. J., & Malley, J. E. (1995). Missed opportunities: Psychological ramifications of counterfactual thought in midlife women. Journal of Adult Development, 2, 87–97. doi:10.1007/BF02251257.
Lecci, L., Okun, M. A., & Karoly, P. (1994). Life regrets and current goals as predictors of psychological adjustment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 731–741. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.66.4.731.
Levinson, D. J., & Levinson, J. D. (1996). The seasons of a woman’s life. New York: Ballantine Books.
MacKinnon, C. A. (1979). Sexual harassment of working women. New Haven: Yale University Press.
MacLean, A., & Elder, G., Jr. (2007). Military service in the life course. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 175–196. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.33.040406.131710.
Mannheim, K. (1952). Essays on the sociology of knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press.
Metha, A. T., Kinnier, R. T., & McWhirter, E. H. (1989). A pilot study on the regrets and priorities of women. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 13, 167–174. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.1989.tb00994.x.
Miller, S. A. (2007). Developmental research methods. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Morrell, C. (2000). Saying no: Women’s experiences with reproductive refusal. Feminism & Psychology, 10, 313–322. doi:10.1177/0959353500010003002.
Parry, D. C. (2005). Work, leisure, and support groups: An examination of the ways women with infertility respond to pronatalist ideology. Sex Roles, 53, 337–346. doi:10.1007/s11199-005-6757-0.
Pavot, W., & Diener, E. (2008). The Satisfaction with Life scale and the emerging construct of life satisfaction. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 3, 137–152. doi:10.1080/17439760701756946.
Reskin, B. (1993). Sex segregation in the workplace. Annual Review of Sociology, 19, 241–270. doi:10.1146/annurev.so.19.080193.001325.
Ridgeway, C. L. (1997). Interaction and the conservation of gender inequality: Considering employment. American Sociological Review, 62, 218–235. doi:10.2307/2657301.
Roese, N. J., & Summerville, A. (2005). What we regret most…and why. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1273–1285. doi:10.1177/0146167205274693.
Rosenfeld, R. A., & Ward, K. B. (1991). The contemporary U.S. women’s movement: An empirical example of competition theory. Sociological Reform, 6, 471–500. doi:10.1007/BF01114473.
Rothermund, K., & Brandstädter, J. (2003). Coping with deficits and losses in later life: From compensatory action to accommodation. Psychology and Aging, 18, 896–905. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.18.4.896.
Russo, N. F. (1976). The motherhood mandate. Journal of Social Issues, 32, 143–153. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1976.tb02603.x.
Schaie, K. W. (2008). Historical processes and patterns of cognitive aging. In S. M. Hofer & D. F. Alwin (Eds.), Handbook of cognitive aging: Interdisciplinary perspectives (pp. 368–383). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Schaie, K. W., Willis, S. L., & Pennak, S. (2005). An historical framework for cohort differences in intelligence. Research in Human Development, 2, 43–67. doi:10.1207/s15427617rhd0201&2_3.
Staudinger, U. M. (2001). Life reflection: A social-cognitive analysis of life review. Review of General Psychology, 5, 148–160. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.5.2.148.
Stewart, A. J., & Healy, J. M., Jr. (1989). Linking individual development and social changes. American Psychologist, 44, 30–42. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.44.1.30.
Stewart, A. J., & Ostrove, J. M. (1998). Women’s personality in middle age: Gender, history, and midcourse corrections. American Psychologist, 53, 1185–1194. doi:10.1037/0003-066X.53.11.1185.
Stewart, A. J., & Vandewater, E. A. (1993). The Radcliffe class of 1964: Career and family social clock projects in a transitional cohort. In K. D. Hulbert & D. T. Schuster (Eds.), Women’s lives through time (pp. 235–258). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Stewart, A. J., & Vandewater, E. A. (1999). “If I had it to do over again…” Midlife review, midcourse corrections, and women’s well-being in midlife. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76, 270–283. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.76.2.270.
Timmer, E., Westerhof, G. J., & Dittman-Kohli, F. (2005). “When looking back on my past life I regret…”: Retrospective regret in the second half of life. Death Studies, 29, 625–644. doi:10.1080/07481180591004660.
Tomer, A., & Eliason, G. (2005). Life regrets and death attitudes in college students. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 51, 173–195. doi:10.2190/B22C-CFFA-216G-R2PN.
Torges, C. M., Stewart, A. J., & Miner-Rubino, K. (2005). Personality after the prime of life: Men and women coming to terms with regrets. Journal of Research in Personality, 39, 148–165. doi:10.1016/j.jrp.2004.09.005.
Torges, C. M., Stewart, A. J., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (2008). Regret resolution, aging, and adapting to loss. Psychology and Aging, 23, 169–180. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.23.1.169.
Veroff, J. (1983). Contextual determinants of personality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 9, 331–343. doi:10.1177/0146167283093002.
Wrosch, C., & Heckhausen, J. (2002). Perceived control of life regrets: Good for young and bad for old adults. Psychology and Aging, 17, 340–350. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.17.2.340.
Wrosch, C., Bauer, I., & Scheier, M. (2005). Regret and quality of life across the adult life span: The influence of disengagement and available future goals. Psychology and Aging, 20, 656–670. doi:10.1037/0882-7974.20.4.657.
Zucker, A. N. (1998). Understanding feminist identity in three generations of college-educated women. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ann Arbor, University of Michigan.
Zucker, A. N. (2004). Disavowing social identities: What it means when women say, “I’m not a feminist, but…. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 28, 423–435. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2004.00159.x.
Zucker, A. N., & Stewart, A. J. (2007). Growing up and growing older: Feminism as a context for women’s lives. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 31, 137–145. doi:10.1111/j.1471-6402.2007.00347.x.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Newton, N., Torges, C. & Stewart, A. Women’s Regrets About Their Lives: Cohort Differences in Correlates and Contents. Sex Roles 66, 530–543 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-012-0126-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-012-0126-6