Past and future regret and missed opportunities: An experimental approach on separate evaluation and different time frames

Abstract

Decisions often imply trade-offs that force people to accept missing an opportunity in the past or in the future. However, it is not fully clear whether a past miss or a future miss elicits more regret. In a direct comparison, previous research had found support for the greater impact of future misses. In an experimental study with 216 participants, we replicated and extended previous research by testing the strength of the future miss in a separate evaluation and with different periods. Results show that, when evaluated separately, future misses caused less regret than past misses. However, future misses made participants change their feelings of regret more intensely than past misses did. Also, regret levels did not decrease when future misses were further away. Our findings support the strength of future misses on regret but also show contrasting effects when evaluated separately.