‘All sing: I rose up one maypole morning and saw in my glass how nobody loves me but you. Ugh. Ugh.’ –James Joyce
Psychologists tend to take the experience of regret as a given, and occupy themselves with the study of its antecedents, consequences, and boundary conditions. They find, for example, that short-term regret is focused on things we did rather than did not do, whereas long-term regret shows the reverse pattern. (…)
Regret springs from the wish to undo an earlier decision. Why? Typically, we feel regret when-and because-we have obtained new information.
