Abstract
Regret is a negative emotion that individuals experience when they perceive the actual outcome of a given situation to be less desirable than the counterfactual outcome. Experiences of regret generally manifest in the form of both sadness (emotional regret) and a tendency to change associated decision-making (behavioral regret). Prior studies employing a box selection paradigm suggest that children begin experiencing emotional regret at approximately 6 years of age. However, behavioral regret remains a less well-studied phenomenon in children. Herein, we explored both forms of regret among 143 children (8–12 years old) using a sequential risk-taking task (the devil task). These analyses revealed that children were able to experience both emotional and behavioral regret, although they were more sensitive to the former relative to the latter. No significant correlations were observed between these two varieties of regret, and the children exhibited higher regret sensitivity to missed opportunities rather than to losses. These findings suggest that emotional regret and behavioral regret may be subject to distinct developmental trajectories and adaptive significance. Further studies should thus take both of these forms of regret into consideration when studying relevant outcomes.
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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, upon reasonable request.
Notes
t represents trial.
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Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 31872782, 31571134, Yanjie SU). The authors would like to thank all the reviewers who participated in the review and MJEditor (www.mjeditor.com) for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.
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Liu, Z., Hong, Y. & Su, Y. “I am regretful but I would not change my decision”: the dissociation between emotional regret and behavioural regret in children. Curr Psychol 42, 26006–26015 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03588-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03588-9