Why some regrets hurt more: the reason you gave.
Research on why some regrets hurt more found that distant regret depends on consequences and justification. Justification means whether you could say why. That effect is stronger for actions than for inactions, and leaving your job is an action.
Nine hundred and fifty-seven French adults.
This is the finding that held, and the rest of the chapter rests on it. Jean-François Bonnefon and Jiehai Zhang surveyed nine hundred and fifty-seven French adults. They published in Applied Cognitive Psychology in 2008. Also, they kept recent and distant regrets carefully apart.
Their sentence: distant regret is predicted by consequences and justification, and justification matters more for actions.
Why some regrets hurt more when you acted.
Justification here means whether you could say why, not whether it worked. So justified decisions and regret are linked, especially for things you did. Because leaving is an action and staying is not, this lands on you. If you leave and it goes badly, your reasons decide how much it hurts in 2036.
However, if you stay and that goes badly, the same protection is measurably weaker.
The direction, not a number.
Some sources quote specific coefficients for this paper. Diego could not confirm them, so they stay out of the book. Therefore, what you get is the direction of the effect only. Still, the reasons behind a decision regret story is clear enough. Your reasoning shelters the choices you actively make.
Use why some regrets hurt more to shape tonight.
Write the real reason you would leave, in plain words you could explain later.
Then check whether that reason would still make sense if leaving went badly.
From the book.
Which lands directly on you, because leaving is an action and staying isn't. If you go and it goes badly, what decides how much that still hurts in 2036 is, on this evidence, whether you can still explain the reasoning that took you out of the door. If you stay and that goes badly, the same protection is measurably weaker, and you get considerably less shelter from having had good reasons at the time. That is the asymmetry.
I Want to Start a Business but I Can't Quit My Job, chapter 14: A decision you can defend later
Questions about why some regrets hurt more.
What explains why some regrets hurt more years later?
The consequences of the choice and its justification. Justification simply means whether you could say why.
Why does a good reason matter more for actions?
The 2008 study found justification affects distant regret more for actions. Leaving is an action, so your reasons count more.
Are there exact numbers for this effect?
Not in this book. Quoted coefficients could not be confirmed, so you get the direction only.
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.