mistakes and regrets
In my Social Psychology textbook, I'm up to the chapter about counterfactual thinking - the tendency to imagine other outcomes in a situation than the ones that actually occurred. I wanted to share this part of the chapter:
When counterfactual thinking involves imagining better outcomes than actually occurred, it is closely related to the experience of regret. And such regrets seem to be more intense when they involve things we did not do but wish we had, rather than the things we did that turned out poorly. As time passes, we gradually downplay or lose sight of the factors that prevented us from acting at the time - these seem less and less important. Even worse, we tend to imagine in vivid detail the wonderful benefits that would have resulted if he had acted. The result: our regrets intensify over time and can haunt us for an entire lifetime.
When counterfactual thinking involves imagining better outcomes than actually occurred, it is closely related to the experience of regret. And such regrets seem to be more intense when they involve things we did not do but wish we had, rather than the things we did that turned out poorly. As time passes, we gradually downplay or lose sight of the factors that prevented us from acting at the time - these seem less and less important. Even worse, we tend to imagine in vivid detail the wonderful benefits that would have resulted if he had acted. The result: our regrets intensify over time and can haunt us for an entire lifetime.