Fear of Regrets

Michael Lewis' book "The Undoing Project" told the fascinating story of Amos Tversky and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman who carried out studies on our decision making process and debunking the assumption that we make choices based on economic rationality. The book describes an unusual collaboration so close that they themselves couldn't tell who originated with which idea.

One of their findings which really stood out for me is that of "minimizing regret" versus "maximizing utility". They found that for many people the fear of regretting a certain action drives the decision making process more than the desire to maximize utility.

I think this human behaviour applies to me. For me the emotional experience of regret is very unpleasant. It is especially so if it involves a sense of responsibility. So for example, the sense of regret and self blame for giving wrong advice to my husband on an investment seems to be edged in my memory perpetually, resulting in fear and wariness when deciding on further similar investments.

Likewise when choosing between say a branded product versus one which is cheaper, the potential of self blame in "I should have known better" ( should the cheaper product turns out inferior) usually deters me from trying out the new product.

Studies have also found that an undesirable outcome can be experienced with different levels of painful regret depending on how easy it is to imagine that things might have turned out differently. So if I missed a bus by 1 minute I would have bashed myself more for not walking a bit faster versus if I missed it by 10 minutes.

Ultimately self blame and an overly strong sense of responsibility leading to fear of regret may deter ourselves from choices which could lead to substantial gain.

As Rafael Nadal once said "Losing is not my enemy...fear of losing is my enemy"