Regret of inaction: thinner than the coffee mug.
The regret of inaction idea says you mostly regret what you did not do. The original 1994 finding partly held up in a 2022 replication, but with weaker effects. So it is probably true, but too thin to lean a life against.
What Gilovich and Medvec actually wrote.
You probably know the line already: in the long run, people regret what they did not do. Thomas Gilovich and Victoria Husted Medvec wrote it in 1994. However, their exact claim was narrower. Actions cause more pain in the short term, while inactions are regretted more in the long run.
How the regret of inaction held up after replication.
So do people regret what they didn't do more? In 2022, Sum Kit Yeung and Gilad Feldman retested it with nine hundred and eighty-eight people in Collabra: Psychology. They found support in three of five studies, though with weaker effects. In the fifth, they failed to find it at all.
Also, Daniel Kahneman objected back in 1998, in Psychological Review. He argued those long-term regrets are largely wistful, and therefore less troublesome than assumed.
The figure filed under the wrong name.
A number travels with this finding everywhere: 56 per cent of distant regrets are inactions. But it is not in the 1994 paper. Instead, it comes from the 2022 replication. Diego had it filed under the wrong authors and caught it only by checking the source. In short, the action vs inaction regret story is real but thin.
Weigh the regret of inaction honestly tonight.
Write down whether fear of "not trying" is your main reason for leaving.
Then list one reason that does not depend on that coffee-mug line.
From the book.
Daniel Kahneman had already objected anyway, in a debate published with Gilovich and Medvec in Psychological Review in 1998, where his argument was that the long-term regrets of inaction are largely wistful, and therefore not as troublesome as the finding is usually taken to mean. A wistful regret and a painful one aren't the same animal.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 14: A decision you can defend later
Questions about regret of inaction.
Is the regret of inaction finding reliable?
Partly. A 2022 replication supported it in three of five studies with weaker effects, and failed in one.
Where does the 56 per cent figure come from?
It comes from the 2022 replication by Yeung and Feldman, not from the original 1994 paper.
What did Kahneman argue against it?
He argued long-term inaction regrets are largely wistful. So they are less troublesome than the finding usually implies.
Read the whole chapter.
This lesson covers one section of chapter 14, “A decision you can defend later”. The book goes further, with the full evidence, the stories and every exercise.
Lessons in this chapter.
- 01 Outcome bias: why you grade choices by results.
- 02 Regret of inaction: thinner than the coffee mug.
- 03 Why some regrets hurt more: the reason you gave.
- 04 Process vs outcome accountability: the case against.
- 05 Decision journal template: one signed page.
- 06 Business phone number banned: the mistake I can name.
- 07 Starting a business after failure: what data says.