0:02

All of us have regrets. A

0:04

business that fails, a degree we

0:07

never finished, or a friendship we let

0:09

fade away. Sometimes we

0:11

make choices we regret, while

0:13

other times we regret the choices

0:16

we didn't make or the paths we didn't

0:18

pursue. Regret can

0:20

be painful. Who doesn't

0:22

know the sinking feeling that comes with

0:24

saying, if only I hadn't done

0:26

that. But some

0:28

psychologists believe that regret can also

0:30

be productive. By learning

0:32

from our regrets rather than dwelling on them,

0:35

we can make needed changes in our lives and

0:38

set ourselves up to make better decisions in the

0:40

future. So what's

0:42

the difference between productive and

0:44

unproductive regret? Why do

0:46

some people seem to ruminate on their regrets

0:48

more than others? If

0:50

regret is consuming your thoughts, what can you do

0:53

about it? And in this

0:55

age of social media and fear of missing

0:57

out, do people have more regrets than

0:59

they used to? Welcome

1:01

to Speaking of Psychology, the

1:03

flagship podcast of the American

1:05

Psychological Association that examines the

1:08

links between psychological science and

1:10

everyday life. I'm Kim

1:12

Mills. My

1:16

guest today is Dr. Robert Leahy,

1:18

founder and director of the American Institute

1:21

for Cognitive Therapy in New York City

1:23

and a clinical professor of psychology in

1:26

the Department of Psychiatry at Weill

1:28

Cornell Medical College. He

1:30

is the past president of the Association for

1:32

Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, the

1:34

International Association of Cognitive Psychotherapy,

1:37

and the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. Dr.

1:40

Leahy is the author or editor of 29 books

1:42

for clinicians and

1:44

the general public. His latest

1:46

book is called, If Only, Finding

1:49

Freedom from Regret, and

1:51

it is all about learning to

1:53

understand regret and make it a

1:55

tool for self-knowledge and change. Dr.

1:58

Leahy, thank you for joining me. If

2:00

you came for having me and poop from

2:03

you don't regret having be on the show.

2:06

I don't think I will. Let's

2:09

talk about what we mean by

2:11

regret is regret and emotion. Away.

2:14

As thinking little boss.

2:17

School so it's a little about

2:19

both. Are you read? Read is

2:22

certainly a way of thinking is

2:24

say us a sense of. Motion

2:27

of disappointments oh or

2:30

remorse Were sadness about

2:32

an action taken are

2:35

not taking. Ah,

2:37

or what we might anticipate. Oh

2:39

we might feel if we. Take.

2:42

Action or do not a connection.

2:44

So since both cognitive and emotional.

2:48

Indices interesting about regret Kim

2:50

is that. In

2:52

Nz and there is no into

2:54

clinical literature, but the really is

2:57

very little. On. Regret that

2:59

I came across the my

3:01

reading the news. A lot

3:03

on regrets and behavioral economics.

3:05

Decision making decisions processes. A

3:07

priest the second most commonly

3:09

mentioned a motion. In

3:12

conversations that college students have.

3:14

Loves being the first so

3:17

on. so it's a pervasive

3:19

emotion. It's. Often

3:21

an emotion. That. People

3:24

ruminate about. Ah, In

3:26

emotion that can linger on. Ah,

3:29

That for decades something I've

3:31

talked to people in their

3:33

nineties who regret. Decisions.

3:35

They made when they were in their

3:37

twenties. so is some. So. Fascinating

3:40

emotion and looking forwards and talking

3:42

about it today. What's

3:44

the difference between productive

3:46

and unproductive regret? For

3:49

a a lot of people, especially

3:51

on social media, were is always

3:53

the positive, the power of positive

3:55

thinking. Roth's regret is. Ah,

3:57

I'm. says. it is

3:59

an emotion, like all emotions evolved

4:02

because they were adaptive. So how can regret

4:05

be adaptive? It certainly can

4:07

be maladaptive. It can lead

4:09

to rumination, depression, self-criticism, resentment.

4:14

But it can be adaptive if you use

4:16

it in the right way.

4:18

So for example, productive regret

4:20

would be an ability

4:22

to learn from my mistakes

4:25

or to anticipate learning from

4:27

my mistakes. So for

4:29

example, if

4:31

you ask young people to

4:34

think about what they're going to live on

4:36

when they're in their 60s toward

4:38

the end of their working career, how much

4:40

money they're going to have, that

4:43

increases plan

4:45

savings. Half the

4:47

people, for example, who are prescribed

4:51

medication for hypertension a year

4:53

later don't take the medication. But

4:55

if you ask them to think about what their

4:58

life would be like if they have a

5:00

stroke and they're paralyzed or unable

5:02

to speak, whatever, that

5:04

significantly increases the compliance

5:07

with medication. So

5:10

regret can be used productively if you look

5:12

back and you think, gee, what did I

5:14

do that in the

5:16

future I might do differently? That's

5:19

like a self-correction type thing. Unproductive

5:23

regret or maladaptive regret is

5:26

characterized not by self-correction but

5:29

by self-criticism. And

5:31

in fact, in some cases,

5:34

self-loathing, self-hatred. It's

5:37

unproductive regrets characterized by dwelling on

5:40

it over and over and over

5:43

and not viewing it as an opportunity

5:45

to learn from experience. I mean, if you

5:47

think about regret

5:49

as you

5:52

carried out an experiment, you did

5:54

something or you chose not to do something and

5:57

you're not satisfied with the consequences. Well,

6:00

we as psychologists are always carrying

6:02

out experiments, but we

6:05

in our ordinary lives carry out

6:07

experiments. You carry out

6:10

the experiments of bringing up the

6:13

most provocative political

6:15

statement on Thanksgiving dinner

6:17

with your family, and you

6:19

find out that that experiment didn't work very

6:22

well. What did you learn from that

6:24

experiment? What's

6:26

interesting to me is

6:28

there are some people who don't

6:30

seem to learn from their mistakes

6:34

or don't anticipate their mistakes.

6:37

So, for example, people who

6:39

abuse drugs, who overeat, who don't

6:41

take their medication, who

6:43

engage in unsafe sex, who

6:45

say inappropriate things, they

6:48

don't seem to anticipate the

6:50

regret. They're not using

6:52

what I would call prospective

6:55

regret or anticipatory regret in

6:57

a useful way. People

7:00

who are manic, who think they can do

7:02

anything, that they have all the

7:04

powers in the world and they're

7:06

too sexy for their own clothes, they

7:09

don't anticipate regret.

7:13

They're a little bit too over

7:15

the top with their confidence. So

7:19

it's an important thing to use

7:23

regret productively. I think the

7:26

most economical way, Kim, to

7:29

use regret is to

7:31

use the regress of other people. I

7:33

know when I was in my early 20s, a

7:37

lot of my age peers were

7:39

misusing drugs or misusing alcohol.

7:45

The only thing I really have of any

7:48

value, because I had no money, I

7:50

was on a fellowship, the only thing I have of any value

7:52

is my brain. I'm

7:55

not going to endanger my brain

7:58

or my health. some

8:00

of these people have. So it's using

8:02

the regrets of other people in

8:05

a productive way by

8:07

learning from their mistakes. So

8:10

there is a kind of inoculation then

8:12

for certain people if you're capable of

8:14

visualizing what your future might be like

8:16

if you did something or didn't do

8:19

something. Exactly. I like the word

8:21

inoculation Kim. It's kind of like there's a

8:23

lot of talk about living

8:26

in the present moment, which

8:29

sounds so comfortable.

8:32

But the only creature that lives entirely

8:34

in the present moment is

8:36

a mosquito. So I

8:39

like to think about living in all

8:42

the moments of my life, thinking about

8:44

what I did

8:47

when I was younger, the mistakes I made, the

8:49

things I did right, but

8:51

also thinking about my future self. So

8:54

for example, one of the techniques that we

8:57

use in cognitive behavior therapy is

9:00

ask yourself what would

9:02

your future self say? I often

9:04

do role plays with patients. So

9:07

what would your future self say

9:10

about over drinking or trying to

9:12

malign your boss or spending

9:19

all this money or whatever it is?

9:21

What would your future self say? Not

9:23

your immediate self, your future self, because

9:25

your future self may

9:28

be the wise self. And

9:30

that's something that I think

9:34

that's something that

9:36

people often

9:38

don't recognize that

9:41

consequences will follow from

9:43

actions that you take or do not take. Is

9:47

there a difference in the degree

9:49

of regret between something that you've

9:51

done and regretting something that you didn't do,

9:53

you know, the road not taken? Is one

9:56

type of regret more difficult to learn from

9:58

than the other? Well, it's interesting. because

10:00

in the short term, we

10:02

tend to have more hot

10:06

regret or emotional intensity

10:08

of regret for actions

10:10

taken. So,

10:14

we may

10:17

be correct that if we

10:19

take this action, we

10:21

may immediately after have some

10:23

regrets. For example, buyer's remorse,

10:26

you buy a car, you buy an

10:28

apartment, or a house, a very common

10:30

thing is right after you think, what

10:32

was I thinking? I'm putting all this

10:36

money down, whatever. So, this

10:39

is called the action effect. We

10:41

have more regrets for action taken

10:43

in the short term. But

10:46

in the long term, as people look back

10:48

on their lives, they

10:51

tend to regret what they

10:53

did not do. And this

10:56

is true cross-culturally, in other cultures

10:59

that have been studied. We

11:02

tend to regret things we did not do. We

11:04

do not pursue that course

11:07

of action, or that education,

11:09

or that relationship, or that

11:12

investment. So,

11:14

that tends to be less of

11:17

an intense passionate regret. It

11:19

tends to be more of

11:21

a lingering, unpleasant

11:24

feeling. But people can ruminate

11:27

about that for months,

11:29

years, decades. Well, let's

11:31

talk about ruminating for a minute because some

11:33

people seem to get really stuck dwelling

11:35

on their regrets and living and

11:38

reliving what they did or didn't

11:40

do. Are there some personality characteristics

11:42

that lead some people to experience

11:45

more regret or more painful regret?

11:47

Sure. Yeah, so we

11:49

know that rumination is a fundamental part

11:51

of depression. And

11:53

in fact, the research by the

11:56

late Nolan Hoxema at Yale shows

11:58

that people who ruminate or more likely

12:01

to get depressed and stay depressed. Having

12:05

said that, in terms of tying

12:07

in regret with rumination, there are certain

12:10

ways of looking at the world that

12:13

lead to more rumination. One

12:16

is to have

12:18

inflexible expectations that

12:22

this is what I expected, it wasn't

12:24

what turned out and

12:27

so I'm going to just dwell on

12:29

it. The other is the

12:32

tendency to not

12:34

accept trade-offs. In

12:37

my view, I live in New York City and

12:40

I know Kim that you live in New York City at

12:42

one time. When

12:44

you live in New York City, you've got

12:46

to accept trade-offs. Again,

12:49

standing for an elevator is a

12:52

major trade-off negotiation. Where's

12:54

my closet? Where's

12:57

my backyard? Exactly.

13:05

When people get married, they end

13:07

up getting divorced over closet space,

13:09

not over arguments. Some

13:16

people have a hard time accepting

13:19

trade-offs. It's

13:22

like there

13:24

are two ways of thinking that I think contribute

13:27

to rumination and

13:30

regret. One is that I call pure

13:32

mind, that my mind should be

13:34

pure. For example, I should

13:36

never be ambivalent. For example, I

13:38

was talking with a young

13:41

man who had been dating

13:44

and actually living with this woman for

13:46

several years. He said, I

13:48

don't know, how can I get married if

13:51

I have mixed feelings? He

13:53

equated ambivalence with,

13:55

it's not a good decision. I

13:58

said, first of all, the word decision. in

14:00

Latin means to cut away from. And

14:03

it means that you have mixed feelings. That's

14:05

what a decision is. Second,

14:08

one reason you have mixed feelings is that

14:10

you know each other. I

14:13

mean, Romeo and Juliet is a

14:15

wonderful fantasy story, but it

14:17

would not be a great way of basing your

14:19

future commitment to

14:22

your life partner. Within five

14:24

days, there are several people dead, including

14:26

Romeo and Juliet, based on a glance

14:29

at a party without

14:31

any conversation at the

14:33

time. So ambivalence may

14:35

be a sign

14:38

of reality testing, rather than the

14:40

idea that my mind should be absolutely

14:43

pure, my emotions should always

14:45

be positive. We have to

14:47

recognize that life is filled

14:49

with complexity and nuance, and

14:52

that ambivalence is simply recognition,

14:54

an honest recognition of that.

14:58

It's like Salieri, a

15:01

famous composer around the time of Mozart,

15:03

said too many notes.

15:06

But you know, Mozart had just

15:08

the right of notes, the right number of

15:10

notes, whatever. We know

15:12

that now. Yeah, he's

15:15

pretty good, that Mozart

15:17

guy. Maybe not

15:19

as great as Taylor Swift, but you

15:21

know, we can't have everything in life.

15:24

But so ambivalence, the intolerance of ambivalence

15:27

contributes to

15:30

regret and rumination. In

15:35

any decision, you know, people think about

15:37

what is the risk of

15:39

staying, what is the risk of changing? All

15:43

decisions are risk versus risk. So

15:46

some people look at life as,

15:48

I'm going to try to find something

15:50

where there's no risk, you

15:53

know. Every option has

15:55

a risk. So for example, if

15:57

you put your Money. Into.

16:01

A savings account and get close

16:03

to zero percent. Interest.

16:06

but you the risk you take

16:08

as you lose against inflation and

16:10

you lose against see opportunity to

16:12

make money if you invested or

16:15

put it in bonds not invested

16:17

in the Us equities. Mom. For.

16:20

You put it in the neck. We

16:22

equities. He run the risk of the

16:24

stock market crash to lose risk versus

16:26

risk. If you

16:28

get married, there's a risk it

16:30

won't work out. If you don't

16:32

get read married, there's a rescue.

16:35

Be lonely or whatever is comparing

16:37

the wrists assault? Looking for a

16:39

risky free alternative on. The.

16:42

On the other part of what

16:44

leads people seem to. Have

16:46

difficulty making decisions on

16:49

is the degree to

16:51

which we. Didn't. Have

16:53

this especially true with people who are

16:55

depressed the degree to which we. Tend

16:57

to have a bias to predict negatives. So.

17:01

I was talking with somebody

17:03

who very, very smart, very

17:05

successful insect, very wealthy, who.

17:08

Keeps almost all his money in. Your

17:12

Cds and in money markets

17:14

are rather than. Investing

17:16

in the stock market now

17:18

on. That. Might be good. Or

17:21

new season, but in the long

17:23

term plans probably not a good

17:25

strategy. But like other things in

17:28

this person's life, he was risk

17:30

averse in Urdu. Should I leave,

17:32

my partner, should I, you know,

17:34

make decisions, whatever. it is. So

17:36

accepting. Except the reasonable

17:39

risk. For. part

17:42

of making decisions and is also

17:44

part of living with the consequences

17:46

so if the consequences one of

17:48

the things that makes it hard

17:50

for people and least some to

17:52

regress to having mom more regret

17:54

and rumination is he said to

17:57

see they have to idealize the

17:59

alternative and to discount

18:01

what they have. So,

18:04

for example, people who regret

18:07

my also, if I had married this other person

18:09

or pursued this other career, I would be

18:11

so much happier. I

18:15

remember a few years ago thinking, I

18:18

know when I was in high school, everybody thought I was going to be a

18:20

lawyer. I thought I

18:22

was going to be a lawyer, but I decided

18:24

to be a psychologist and I'm pretty happy with

18:26

that. But I thought, maybe I should

18:28

have been a lawyer and all that. And then

18:30

I began thinking, gee, I know a lot of

18:32

lawyers and they have one of the

18:34

highest rates of depression. It's

18:38

such an adversarial. I'm not

18:40

maligning lawyers, but I think

18:42

for me, being a

18:45

psychologist has been a good choice.

18:48

But we tend to idealize the alternatives. And

18:51

people who regret often idealize

18:54

the alternatives. They have the fear of missing

18:56

out. Somebody

18:58

recently published an article on the joy of missing

19:00

out. So it's kind of like... It's

19:04

another way to look at it. Thank

19:07

God I'm not at 42nd Street at 12 midnight New Year's

19:09

Eve. Thank

19:14

God I missed out on that. So

19:19

there's this sort of tendency to

19:21

idealize the alternatives and

19:23

then to discount what you have. One

19:26

way of countering

19:28

the idea of... There's

19:30

several ways of countering the idea of

19:32

living with what you have is

19:35

to imagine if you had nothing. And

19:41

this is, I think, something that in

19:44

an affluent and very ambitious

19:46

society, we often don't spend

19:50

enough time with gratitude.

19:53

So for example, I walk to

19:56

my office. I live on the

19:58

Upper East Side. My office... This is

20:00

on 58th Street. And

20:04

even if I walk down 3rd Avenue, I'll

20:07

see people who are homeless. I saw an

20:10

elderly woman who was homeless pushing a

20:12

cart and stuff. And

20:15

two emotions that can

20:17

counter regret are

20:20

one is compassion for

20:23

somebody who has so little

20:25

and the other is gratitude for

20:28

the fact that I'm actually able to walk

20:31

down 3rd Avenue and go

20:33

to a nice office and

20:35

talk to you today. So

20:39

it's kind of like

20:41

we don't really have the kind of

20:43

culture of gratitude. One

20:50

thing that's interesting, Kim, is there's

20:54

a search tool called Google Ngram

20:57

that you can look, you can type

20:59

in Google Ngram and

21:02

you'll come up with a search engine. And

21:04

on the search engine, you can type in a

21:06

word and see how often

21:10

that word is used in the printed

21:12

language over the last 150 years.

21:16

So if we look at regret, regret

21:19

had an incredible increase in

21:22

the frequency in English language printed

21:26

books and documents between 1980 and 2019.

21:31

And what happened during that time was

21:34

a dramatic increase in

21:37

economic inequality, a dramatic

21:40

increase in perfectionism and surveys

21:42

that were taken from

21:44

1989 to 2016. And

21:51

a dramatic increase, I think,

21:53

in the idea that I should be

21:55

able to do everything. So

21:58

regret is the opportunity. emotion. And

22:01

we often think that opportunity

22:03

is always a wonderful thing, but

22:05

opportunity is also leads

22:07

you to think, well, this

22:09

person is so successful. Why

22:12

am I not successful? Why am

22:14

I not extremely wealthy

22:16

or famous or whatever? So

22:19

we have this, I mean, it's a dramatic

22:21

increase in 1980 on, you find the same

22:23

thing, by the way, in

22:25

Spanish literature in

22:27

Russia. So you have this dramatic

22:30

increase in economic inequality,

22:33

globalization, alienation,

22:35

perfectionism, social

22:38

media kicking in 20 years ago,

22:40

where it gives you the social

22:42

comparison. How many people are

22:44

comparing themselves to the homeless,

22:47

elderly woman on Third Avenue?

22:50

They're comparing themselves

22:53

to Elon Musk,

22:56

who by the way, doesn't seem to be a very

22:58

happy person with his $240 billion. But

23:03

I mean, they're even comparing themselves to

23:06

their peers, but because people use social media

23:08

in such a way as to always present

23:10

something beautiful. This is the lovely dinner I

23:12

had last night. This is the vacation I

23:14

took, whereas their life might be miserable, but

23:17

you don't know that. Exactly.

23:19

Yeah, like the humble brag, I'm so

23:21

humbled, I'm so outstanding and having a

23:23

wonderful time. No,

23:26

you're not humble. But

23:32

let me actually bring up humility. One of

23:34

the concepts I describe in my book,

23:37

if only, Finding Freedom from Regret, is

23:40

what I call adaptive

23:43

humility. This is

23:45

a concept in the literature on

23:47

humility that I find very appealing.

23:49

Adaptive humility is not I'm a

23:52

doormat and I deserve nothing. That's

23:54

not what adaptive humility is. Adaptive

23:56

humility is I'm just another human

23:58

being. I'm not

24:01

special. I don't deserve any special

24:03

treatment. I can make mistakes. I

24:06

can be wrong. I can apologize. And

24:10

what we know is that from the

24:12

research on humility, that

24:17

people who are viewed

24:19

as having humility, people

24:21

who are viewed as sincerely

24:24

apologizing, are trusted

24:26

more, have better relationships, have

24:28

better friendships. And people

24:30

want to work with them. And I'm

24:33

sure many people listening to this can

24:35

think of people they

24:37

know who never apologize. Adaptive

24:40

humility is, I made a mistake. I

24:44

said something that wasn't fair. I

24:48

really felt bad about that. I want to

24:50

apologize. I hope you accept my

24:52

apology. But

24:54

in a sense, really,

24:57

you can't say, you

24:59

owe me an apology. It's

25:02

kind of like simply asking for an apology

25:06

is not the currency to

25:08

buy an apology. But

25:11

adaptive humility allows you to

25:13

live with mistakes, allows

25:15

you to anticipate mistakes, allows

25:19

you to use

25:21

regret productively, allows

25:23

you to have

25:26

gratitude for what you have. I

25:28

mean, I grew up very poor in

25:31

a housing project. I mean, it

25:33

was a tough neighborhood.

25:36

But I'm

25:38

not glamorizing poverty.

25:41

But I think it led

25:44

me to, one, to have

25:46

compassion for people who have

25:48

less. Not

25:51

to be an elitist with

25:53

people who don't

25:56

have high status positions

25:58

to treat everybody. as an

26:01

equal to

26:05

be able to live as

26:07

a human being, not as some

26:09

character above the crowd. But

26:13

in your work, you talk about

26:15

the sunk cost effect when it

26:17

comes to regret. What

26:19

do you mean by that? And how can we

26:22

overcome that cost to make better choices so that

26:24

we might have fewer regrets in the future? Yeah,

26:27

so the sunk cost effect, I think we

26:29

all can identify with this. You

26:33

buy something, you spend a lot of money, you buy

26:36

a dress or a jacket or

26:38

whatever, and you

26:40

wear it once, you put it in your closet,

26:42

and it's there for 5 or 10 years. And

26:47

you or your partner say, why don't you throw

26:49

that out? You haven't worn that

26:52

jacket, Bob, in 10 years. Oh,

26:54

I paid good money for it. So

26:57

it's what's called a sunk cost. In

26:59

other words, I've already put the

27:01

cost in, I've already paid the good

27:03

money, but now it's not

27:06

useful to me because I'm not using it.

27:09

And I'm only kidding myself. And plus, I'm taking

27:11

up room in the closet. Plus, I

27:13

could give it away to somebody else who could use it. But

27:17

we have humans are the only

27:20

living creature that gets

27:22

trapped by sunk costs. I mean, cats

27:24

and dogs and insects and birds, monkeys,

27:28

they're not trying to justify their past decisions.

27:32

They're not saying, well, I'm going to hold on

27:34

to that banana for the next five months because

27:37

I worked hard to get that

27:40

banana. When

27:42

it's no longer useful, they move on to something else.

27:45

But humans are self-reflective. We want to

27:47

make sense of our decisions. We

27:49

think that, oh, if I throw

27:51

that piece of clothing out, I'm

27:54

going to regret it. I'll miss it.

27:57

I'll be wasting. One

28:00

exercise I use when I

28:02

give workshops is, let's imagine I hold up a $100 bill

28:05

and I said,

28:07

you know, I'm not going to spend

28:09

this on myself. I'm not going to give this to anybody.

28:12

But what I'd like to do is burn it in front of people.

28:16

Most people watching me burn it would be

28:18

really angry with me because they

28:20

don't want to see me wasting a $100 bill.

28:24

And we don't, you know, it's like when your mother says

28:26

to you and you're 10 years old,

28:28

eat everything on your plate, you know, there

28:30

are people somewhere else in the world starving.

28:33

You know, it's this human thing

28:36

about wasting and regret. So

28:40

what can you do with the sunk costs? Like

28:43

for example, you can have sunk costs about a

28:45

relationship or a career. You

28:48

know, some people start out

28:50

a career and they hate it after a few

28:52

years. And they say, oh, I can't give

28:54

it up because I put several years of training. I

28:57

can't walk away from all that. That's the

28:59

sunk cost. The question is, is the future

29:01

going to be useful and is it going

29:03

to be pleasurable and meaningful? When

29:08

I left academics, because I wanted

29:10

to pursue a clinical career, the

29:12

husband of one of my colleagues

29:15

said, Bob is leaving academics

29:17

and research. What a waste of a

29:19

good mind. And

29:22

I think maybe he had a point. I should have listened to

29:24

him. But you

29:26

know, it's sort of

29:28

like the idea that we

29:31

have to justify our past

29:33

investment. For example, people will hold

29:35

onto a stock and say, well, I paid $100 for

29:37

the stock. It

29:40

went down to $60. It will

29:42

come back. No,

29:44

your money died and went to

29:46

heaven. You know, it's not coming back. It's

29:49

not going to be resurrected. They

29:52

go to the cemetery, rest in peace. That's

29:55

your investment. But

29:58

it's something that humans do. So what

30:00

we should think about, one is what

30:03

is the future utility of this? What

30:06

is the cost of my keeping it?

30:08

What is the benefit? Second, like

30:10

with a relationship, if I stay in

30:12

this bad relationship for another year, what

30:16

opportunities will I miss? If

30:19

I stay in a bad marriage

30:21

or whatever, I'll miss the opportunity of

30:23

finding a new relationship or the opportunity

30:25

of being happy on my own. I'll

30:29

miss the opportunity of not having

30:31

arguments with my partner. So

30:34

we think about opportunity costs. We

30:36

think about the error of trying to

30:38

justify the past rather than trying

30:40

to make the future better. So

30:43

your decision should always be about

30:45

the future self and future

30:47

utility. But we often think,

30:49

well, people look at me and think, oh, what an

30:51

idiot, you know, he wasted

30:53

or she wasted all that

30:56

time. I

30:58

think when people see you getting out

31:01

of a bad situation, they

31:03

often think, well, it's about time, you

31:06

know, good for you. But if they don't, what

31:09

kind of friend is that? If they

31:11

want you to stay in a bad

31:13

situation? The other thing is, what advice

31:15

would you give to somebody else? So

31:17

we're really, really good at telling

31:20

other people, get the

31:22

hell out of that relationship, or

31:26

change your career or change your

31:28

job or whatever. We're

31:31

really good at telling people to

31:33

make a change because we don't have

31:35

to justify their decision.

31:38

It's not, this is like cognitive

31:40

dissonance. We don't have to justify

31:42

for them why

31:44

they made that decision. So

31:47

yeah, the sunk cost is very powerful. And your

31:49

cat or your dog or whatever

31:51

pets you have or birds

31:54

or whatever, they're not sitting

31:57

there ruminating about what

31:59

will other birds do. or cats think of me and

32:02

I'll just cruise, I'm a bad

32:04

decision maker. As far as we

32:06

know, they're not doing that. I

32:09

won't be able to get into the college of

32:11

my choice. Yeah. Cats

32:17

only have four cognitions. This

32:19

feels good, this doesn't feel good. I want

32:21

that and what's next? So

32:29

to shift gears a little bit here,

32:31

let me ask you this. How early

32:33

in life does regret manifest? What

32:36

age do children begin to feel

32:38

regret and does that change as

32:40

they get older? Yeah,

32:42

so it's interesting. The kids

32:45

begin showing evidence of regret between

32:48

the ages of four and seven. And

32:51

the kids who express regret turn

32:53

out to be better at making

32:55

decisions because they learn from

32:58

their mistakes or they anticipate mistakes.

33:01

Second, they're better at regulating their

33:04

emotions because they think, well,

33:06

if I act out in this way, maybe

33:08

I'll regret it. Or if I

33:10

do this, my emotions will become dysregulated.

33:15

As people get toward the end of life, when

33:18

you look at the regrets of people in hospice,

33:20

people who may be dying in the next month

33:23

or few months or whatever, they're

33:25

not having regrets. I wish I spent

33:28

more time on social media or I

33:31

wish I got the bargains at

33:33

Bloomingdale's at the end of the Christmas

33:35

season. They're not thinking about that. The

33:38

regrets that they express, I wish it had

33:40

been more true to my emotions. I

33:43

wish I had told people I love them. I

33:45

wish I had pursued things I really wanted to do.

33:48

And basically living according to

33:51

my values and according to

33:53

the human relationships. And I think

33:55

that's an important thing to listen to

33:57

people as they get toward the end

33:59

of life. life. What they've learned,

34:02

they have a lot of wisdom about

34:05

what matters. And so, if

34:08

you look at the regrets of people in

34:10

hospice, that's what we see.

34:12

We don't see materialism and

34:14

status and, you know,

34:18

proving winning arguments. That's

34:22

not in the regret repertoire of

34:24

elderly people. In fact, elderly people

34:26

have a positivity bias. They

34:29

may have more long-term regrets because

34:31

they've been around for a long time. But

34:35

on a day-to-day basis, they more

34:37

easily distance themselves from regrets.

34:39

They just kind of move on. All

34:41

right, so that didn't work out last week.

34:44

I'm going to move on, you know, every

34:46

day's gift. Do men

34:48

and women experience regret differently?

34:51

So, men and women, and again, I think

34:53

this is going to change as gender roles

34:56

become more integrated,

34:58

let's say. Men

35:01

have more regrets in

35:03

the research about achievement and

35:06

materialism. And

35:09

women have more regrets about relationship

35:12

and having sex too

35:14

early in a relationship. Having

35:16

said that, men

35:19

and women have a lot of the same

35:21

regrets. When we

35:23

look at cultural differences, Americans

35:26

have more regrets about

35:29

romance, about school, about

35:32

education, career. Whereas

35:36

people in Asian culture,

35:40

like in Taiwan or Japan, more

35:43

likely to have regrets about

35:45

family and about relationships and

35:47

about interpersonal things. There's

35:51

a lot of overlap. It's not like either

35:54

war. So,

35:57

it's kind of like thinking about what

35:59

your regrets are all

36:01

about. What do they say

36:03

to you about it? But

36:06

I think going back to what you mentioned earlier, Kim,

36:08

I do think that social media,

36:13

that regret is often tied into

36:15

social comparison. Not

36:17

always, but it's often tied into, well,

36:19

look at that person. They had a

36:21

patient who was

36:27

doing fairly well in his career,

36:31

but had

36:33

not accumulated as much wealth as

36:35

people he went to college with, regretting

36:40

where he was or having

36:42

envy, whatever. But I said,

36:44

well, let's look at what you do have. And he

36:46

had a great relationship with his partner, great

36:49

relationship with his kids, he's healthy, he's

36:51

a good person. And I

36:54

said, do you think

36:57

there'd be people who would be envious of you? So we

37:00

often don't think that when we regret

37:03

things, we don't think, gee, a lot of

37:05

people might be envious of me. So

37:08

it's a paradox, I

37:10

think, that the

37:13

social comparison, I think,

37:15

should be geared

37:18

to gratitude and compassion.

37:20

And I've never

37:22

met somebody, maybe these people

37:24

never go to therapy, but I've never met somebody

37:27

who said, you know, Dr. Leahy,

37:29

you really got to help me because I have

37:32

too much gratitude and compassion. You

37:35

know, I don't know, it's getting the best of me.

37:40

Yeah, we got to change that. Yeah,

37:44

on the other hand, I know someone who

37:47

likes to tell people that she regrets no

37:49

choices that she ever made in her life,

37:51

which I find really hard to believe. Do

37:53

you encounter, are there really such people who

37:55

say, yeah, everything I did, I was right.

37:57

Yeah, right. Yeah, I say nonsense. know,

38:00

it's like you're

38:03

looking in the wrong mirror. I think

38:05

that's part of our contemporary social

38:11

meme. I have no regrets because every

38:14

decision I made was mine. I live

38:16

with the consequences. How are you

38:18

going to learn from your mistakes? Why

38:20

would you ever apologize if

38:22

you don't have regrets? Imagine

38:25

you were looking for a life partner. You're

38:28

looking for a life partner and you meet

38:30

somebody and they say, oh, I really like

38:32

you, I'm an attractive you, you're a wonderful

38:34

person, but I think you need to know

38:36

something about me. I'm incapable

38:39

of regret and apology, right?

38:43

Not unlike some politicians. Well,

38:48

I don't know. For a lot of people, that might be a

38:50

red flag because you

38:52

want people who have

38:54

some regrets and some apologies. That's

38:57

how you heal relationships. Are

39:00

there any big areas in this aspect of

39:02

psychology that you feel are under research that

39:04

we still need to know answers about? Well,

39:07

I think that, I mean,

39:10

I think we really need to look at

39:12

a lot of cultural

39:14

issues and regret, a lot

39:16

of LBGT issues and regret.

39:18

And there's some recent

39:21

research on that, like

39:23

transgender affirming surgery,

39:26

only 1% of

39:28

patients who have that express

39:32

regret. Despite what

39:35

the critics may say of transgender

39:38

and gender affirming, only 1%,

39:40

whereas people who

39:43

have cosmetic surgery, a

39:45

significant percentage have regrets. So,

39:47

you know, are you more likely

39:49

to have regret about a

39:52

nose job than a transgender? Yes,

39:54

by factors, by

39:57

many factors, right? So,

40:01

the facts can often confuse your thinking.

40:03

But, yeah,

40:05

so I think we need to really look at

40:08

a lot of the cultural

40:11

and demographic differences

40:13

and group differences in regret. And

40:17

then how people spontaneously

40:20

deal with regret. I mean, a lot of times,

40:22

if you're a therapist, you listen to a patient and you think,

40:26

gee, that's a great idea and I wish I thought of

40:28

it. And then you realize, yeah,

40:30

my wife has been telling me that for five years.

40:33

Why am I more likely to listen

40:35

to a patient than my partner? You

40:37

know? So, a lot of times people

40:39

come up with their spontaneous cures

40:44

or strategies or techniques.

40:47

Therapists don't have a monopoly on wisdom. And

40:50

the question is, even if they have any

40:52

wisdom, but they don't have a monopoly on

40:54

it. So, I'm looking at how

40:56

people make the best of what

40:58

they have. And what

41:01

I'm struck by, I'm not a religious

41:03

person. I was raised Catholic, but I'm

41:05

not practicing anything. But I

41:08

had a Orthodox Jewish

41:10

patient who said,

41:12

you know, Bob, you know the mazza, right

41:14

outside the threshold of the door,

41:17

you see an apartments in New York. I

41:20

touched that when I leave the

41:22

apartment to remind me of

41:24

God's presence throughout the day. Now,

41:27

even though I'm not a believer, I

41:29

thought, what a beautiful reminder of

41:32

gratitude and humility to take throughout

41:34

the day. And

41:36

I don't think you have to be like a

41:38

Zen warrior to think this way. But

41:41

I think there's a lot to be

41:43

said for recognizing life has trade-offs.

41:46

You're never going to get everything you want on

41:48

your terms. So forget about demanding

41:50

it. Be flexible

41:53

about your expectations. Recognize

41:56

your mind is not going to be pure mind. It's

41:59

going to be a color. light of scope filled with noise.

42:03

And you can be ambivalent about your

42:05

partner for the rest of your life and still

42:07

have a good relationship because all

42:09

your friends who know you are ambivalent

42:11

about you because they know you. And

42:15

that to me is living in the

42:18

real world. And regret

42:20

is always about a fictional

42:23

world. It's about what

42:27

psychologists call a counterfactual

42:29

world. What does counterfactual

42:31

mean? Against the facts.

42:34

It means it's not a fact.

42:36

It's what you think could be.

42:38

It's a possibility emotion as

42:40

opposed to living in the real world and making

42:42

the best of what you

42:44

have while still trying to

42:46

do better. It doesn't mean you are

42:49

resigned and give up. You

42:51

can always do better. You can always grow. But

42:55

we often do recognize how fortunate

42:57

we are until we

42:59

talk to people living in other parts of

43:01

the world who are suffering or

43:04

see people who are disabled

43:06

and struggling just to get down the

43:08

street and to live. Dr.

43:12

Leahy, I want to thank you for chatting with

43:14

me today. I found this to be very interesting

43:17

and informative. And I think that our listeners will

43:19

learn a great deal from it. Thank you. Well,

43:21

Kim, thank you so much for having me. And

43:23

I really sincerely appreciate your having me on. Hope

43:25

you have a great day. Thank

43:28

you. You can find

43:30

previous episodes of Speaking of

43:32

Psychology on our website at

43:35

www.speakingofpsychology.org or on Apple,

43:37

Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get

43:39

your podcasts. If you have comments

43:41

or ideas for future podcasts, you

43:43

can email us at speakingofpsychology at

43:46

apa.org. Speaking of Psychology

43:48

is produced by Lee Wineman. Our

43:50

sound editor is Chris Condayan. Thank

43:52

you for listening. For the American

43:54

Psychological Association, I'm Kim Mills. for

44:02

which 30 John