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Looking Forward To Looking Backward Analysis

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Byrd, M., Gilbert., D., Morewedge, C., Risen, J., & Wilson, T. (2004). Looking Forward to Looking Backward: The Misprediction of Regret. Psychological Science, 15, 346-350. Regret is one of the many things that influence decision making. Whether it is fear of regretting not buying that expensive item, or breaking up with that clingy boyfriend. Our fear of regret rules our life at times. In reality, is regret something that we should fear? These three studies prove that regret is more scary to think about than it is to experience. Another concept of regret considered is the margin of which something could have been better. An example this article uses is the amount of time by which a plane is missed. One expects to feel more regret when they miss a plane by a minute than when they miss it by 10 minutes. This is because self blame is expected to come into play. If they miss the plane by a narrow margin they feel like they could have done something better to have made it to the plane on time. If they miss the plane by a wide margin, they assume that it was the cause of something or someone else. In each study the participants were either experiencers or forecasters. The experiencer was the one who actually experienced the feeling of missing something …show more content…

Instead of using a simple scenario such as missing a plane or not winning a game, a case study could be conducted which could study major life decisions. For instance, a researcher could study a persons life and examine the major life decisions they make such as getting married, having children, purchasing a home or car. Obviously there is a chance of some unhappy decisions as well such as divorce or possibly declaring bankrupt. Watching one person’s decisions throughout their life and being able to record their regret and disappointment, I believe, would prove to be very accurate in determining the correlation between fear of regret and actual

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