My research is focused on understanding when and why people think about “what might have been,” and the effects of these thoughts in applied, everyday contexts. I’m particularly interested in the experience of regret, the negative emotion stemming from the realization that one’s actions could have resulted in better outcomes than actually occurred.

I have done work examining what regrets individuals report in real life, rather than lab contexts, both through meta-analysis of previous research results (Roese & Summerville, 2005) and through a nationally representative survey. This work has informed theoretical work focused on the functional nature of regret. Specifically, the opportunity principle (Roese & Summerville, 2005) highlights that the domains in which individuals report the most regret are those in which they also feel the most sense of personal control and potential for future change. Regret appears to persist in those situations in which it has the greatest potential to spur future action, and to diminish in cases in which nothing more can be learned or altered. Individuals also seem to recognize the functionality of regret in their self-reported beliefs about regret, viewing it as superior to nearly a dozen other negative emotions at a range of functions (Saffrey, Summerville, & Roese, 2008).

My current research reconsiders theories of regret aversion (e.g., Zeelenberg, 1999) in light of this widespread evidence that (a) regret is beneficial and appears to be tailored to situations in which it has the potential to improve future outcomes and (b) individuals report feelings towards regret consistent with valuation rather that aversion. My research has found that, although individuals expect information about foregone alternatives to be upsetting, they nonetheless tend to seek it out, particularly if they are dissatisfied with their obtained outcome.

Summerville, A., & Roese, N. J. (2008). Dare to Compare: Fact based versus simulation based comparison in daily life. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 664-671.

Summerville, A., & Roese, N. J. (2008). Self-report measures of individual differences in regulatory focus: A cautionary note. Journal of Research in Personality, 42, 247-254.

Roese, N. J., Summerville, A., & Fessel, F. (2007). Regret and behavior: Comment on Zeelenberg and Pieters. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 17, 25-28.

Roese, N. J., & Summerville, A. (2005). What we regret most … and why. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1273-1285.