Regret Aversion

How many times have you considered jumping ship, putting pen to paper on a novel or ending a loveless relationship?But ended up doing nothing?This may be attributed to the fear of regret, a powerful force that drives us to maintain the status quo.

Research in psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral science has found that regret can have a huge impact on our lives.Most of our emotional and mental resources are consumed with dealing with money and relationships, and regret controls our performance on both.

In order to avoid regrets, people hold on to the “chicken ribs”

When it comes to money, a well-known cognitive bias related to regret is called the “disposition effect,” which describes how investors lose more and more money and don’t sell.We are all extremely reluctant to sell our assets at a loss, whether it’s a fund, stock or bitcoin.In fact, even if the value keeps going down, we’d rather hold on to it and hope that it will go up again, no matter how slim the hope may be.

The driving force behind this behavior stems from our fear of regret, which causes us to hold on to the status quo even when our reasoning and intuition tell us we shouldn’t.We are reluctant to sell assets at a loss because to do so would be to admit to ourselves that the investment we made in the first place was wrong, and holding on to it allows us to avoid regret for the time being.

A more general example is the “sunk cost bias”.We often embark on new projects with high expectations.And while we put a lot of energy into them, we gradually realize that the project can’t be continued.While it would be easy for us to pull out at this point, we instead tend to persist and persist again, putting in more and more energy – even when intuition and common sense sense perceive that there will be no reward for going on like this.

Here’s the crux of the matter, if we give up on a project before it’s realized, it’s going to make us regret it.And trying to avoid regret can land us in this trap of irrational persistence.This bias often plays out in romantic relationships as well.For example, many people maintain their relationships knowing full well that nothing will come of them.This bad relationship that lacks love and passion survives because of the trouble a breakup can cause.Ending such a relationship would force us to admit failure, which we would regret.To avoid regret, we tell ourselves that we’ve come this far so we’ll give it another chance, even though deep down we know it’s hopeless.

The same trepidation can stop us from starting a new relationship.While this may temporarily make us feel pretty good about the status quo, we won’t be happy about it in the long run.

Regret and fear of regret are both suffering

But why are we so easily manipulated by “regret”?Regret is a very important emotion; it is an evolutionary learning ability.Without regret, it would be difficult for us to learn from our mistakes.We need that painful stimulus to avoid making the same mistakes again and again.

The brain decides how much we regret and feel bad about something, but it processes it in a way that is contrary to common sense.For example, missing the bus by one minute tends to trigger more regret than missing it by ten minutes, no matter how long it takes for the next bus to come.Similarly, making a bad decision to end the status quo can bring about more regret than unwisely maintaining the status quo.It seems that proactively making a decision to change the status quo creates the false impression – that there are no mitigating circumstances if one screws up – which makes the penalty of regret that we impose on ourselves even more severe.

Recent brain imaging studies have led us to recognize that substantial activity in the neural circuits involved in regret occurs in the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory functions.Studies have also shown that the neural circuits involved in feeling regret are very similar to those involved in fear of regret, suggesting that fear of regret is in fact not dissimilar to feeling regret.Apparently, this explains why the fear of regret is also so painful and intense.

However, regret affects everyone differently.Highly neurotic people are more likely to feel regret than others.This means that a person’s susceptibility to regret is related to his or her experience of anger, fear and loneliness.Another closely related concept is known as “loss aversion”, which refers to the tendency to focus on losses rather than gains.This makes those who are prone to regret more reluctant to take risks.

Challenging the status quo

So how do we overcome our fear of regret and achieve our goals in life?

1.The first thing is to realize how deeply regret affects us.If we can realize that we’re actually being played by our brains, then we’re more likely to make the right choices.So if you find that you’re always having trouble achieving your goals in life, maybe you can ask yourself if your fear of regret is playing a role.

If this is the case, remind yourself that while making a change is always a risk, so is resting on your laurels.Moreover, unlike the anxiety that comes from contemplating the future, regret comes from pondering the past.Thus, while regret helps us learn from our mistakes, it does nothing to fix the mistakes we have made.

2.Being open to the advice of others is the most effective way to remedy the situation.For example, you can ask professionals when it comes to financial decisions.Because then you can make decisions with others, and even if they are ultimately proven to be wrong, someone else will share the blame with you, which can greatly reduce our fear of regret.

This logic also applies to regrets experienced in relationships.Before starting a new relationship or ending one, listen to the advice of close friends or family members.In addition to getting more advice, this will also give you the opportunity to talk to other people about the pain of your regrets, which will make it easier for you to get rid of the negative status quo.

Letting the status quo rule may be comfortable, but it can cause us to miss out on the important things in life.Maintaining the status quo is merely a temporary escape, and it also tends to put us in a much more miserable position in the long run.So how do you take charge of your life?