Regret

Regret is the negative emotion that we experience when realizing or imagining that our present situation would have been better had we decided or acted differently. Regret originates in a comparison between outcomes of a chosen course of action and the nonchosen alternatives in which the latter outperform the former. It is clearly a painful emotion that reflects on one's own causal role in the current, suboptimal situation. The emotion regret is accompanied by feelings that one should have known better and having a sinking feeling, by thoughts about the mistake one has made and the opportunities lost, by tendencies to kick oneself and to correct one's mistake, by desires to undo the event and get a second chance, and by actually doing this if ...

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