Print Disappointment is the feeling you get when something you hoped for doesn’t happen. Regret is the feeling you get when you think you could have prevented something undesirable by acting differently. The difference between these two emotions is that with disappointment, you have no influence, for example, when your football team loses, while with regret, you could have done things differently. These feelings make you reflect on whether your expectations were realistic in the first place, thus preventing future disappointment, regret, or mistakes.
What-if thinking
You process disappointment and regret through what-if thinking (also known as counterfactual thinking). This means thinking about alternative situations and outcomes. There are two types of what-if thinking:
- Upward counterfactual thinking is focused on improving a situation. For example, “If I had left 5 minutes earlier, I wouldn’t have missed the bus.” This helps you learn from your mistakes.
- Downward counterfactual thinking is focused on how the situation could have been worse. For example, “I came in third, but at least I wasn’t last!” This helps you feel better about the situation.
Too much or too little
What-if thinking is very healthy when you feel disappointed or regretful. However, there are some situations where it can become problematic:
- If you are perfectionistic or have a strong focus on self-improvement, you may become tense due to the large amount of upward counterfactual thinking. You regret more quickly because you always see room for improvement and feel obligated to do better next time. This can also lead to anger towards yourself if you fail to prevent mistakes.
- If you tend to procrastinate, for example, because you feel down, you may unconsciously apply too much downward counterfactual thinking. You convince yourself that it can always be worse, which causes you to have little motivation to change. This can contribute to maintaining your negative feelings.
Avoidance of disappointment or regret
If you find disappointment or regret difficult emotions to experience, you may have a strong tendency to avoid them at all costs:
- If you have often experienced disappointment or find it difficult to tolerate this emotion, you may always keep your expectations as low as possible to avoid disappointment. This form of pessimism leaves little room for positive emotions.
- Conversely, you can also leave your expectations unchanged and hold on to unrealistic hope. For example, by convincing yourself that your partner won’t cheat for the fourth time after three times. Hope is then a kind of deferred disappointment, and you avoid actively doing something with your emotions and the situation.
- You may have the illusion that control drastically reduces the chance of regret and mistakes. Think of reading all the reviews when buying a new product. Although it is good to reduce risk, if you are afraid of regret, it can also hinder you if you never dare to take risks. For example, you may be afraid to change jobs.
- Thanks to empathy, you are able to understand what others feel. However, this can also lead to feeling responsible for preventing disappointment in others and thus meeting their expectations. This may cause you to go beyond your own limits.
Take home message
If you recognize yourself in the examples above, it’s important to realize that disappointment and regret are normal emotions to experience. It’s healthy to have these feelings and they are functional and useful for your development. Making mistakes, taking risks, and daring to learn from your choices contribute to developing your self-confidence and sharpening your insight and decision-making skills. In the short term, it may feel uncomfortable at times, but in the long term, it will benefit you more!
Sources:
Keith D. Markman, Igor Gavanski, Steven J. Sherma &, Matthew N. McMullen (1993),
The Mental Simulation of Better and Worse Possible Worlds, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 29, Issue 1, p87-109,
Markman, K. D., & Miller, A. K. (2006). Depression, control, and counterfactual thinking: Functional for whom? Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25(2), 210–227.
Sirois, F.M., Monforton, J. and Simpson, M. (2010) “If Only I Had Done Better”:
Perfectionism and the Functionality of Counterfactual Thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin , 36 (12). 1675 – 1692.
Sirois, F.M. (2004) Procrastination and counterfactual thinking: avoiding what might have been. British Journal of Social Psychology, 43 (2). 269 – 286
