Analysis of the Phenomenon of Regret in Human and Animals

Regret can be defined as recognizing that one has made a mistake and could have made a better decision. This takes two forms: changing one's ways in order to fix the mistakes made and making long-term changes in the evaluation of events in order to avoid future feelings of regret. There has not been much research on the long-term process of regret avoidance in humans or closely related primates.

31 mice were trained and studied in order to see if nonhuman animals alter their behaviors to avoid regret. The mice made decisions of whether to spend time from a limited budget to achieve food rewards by sacrificing and making decisions. The mice were tested for 70 days, during which the mice could only receive any food from the task given. From their research, scientists observed that when the mice displayed regret-like behaviors, they would alter their decision-making strategies. Once the mice made these alterations later decisions appeared to make up for the lost opportunities from different factors such as reaction time and the time in which they consumed their food.

Regret described the phenomenon of one recognizing their losses are a fault of their own actions. Regret is seen having a negative effect on humans where one will suffer consequences in order to avoid future instances of regret. Expression of regret behavioral and neurological was seen in regrets during tasks where they were to find food.. It was unknown if nonhuman animals have the ability to better their decision-making skills after experiencing feelings of regret. This research shows examples of nonhuman animals altering their behaviors and decision making in order to avoid the feeling of regret. Their data suggests mice accomplish this by shifting the way they made decisions and that they began to understand what choices they made affect them negatively.

Regretful experiences are when someone recognizes that they could have made a better decision in the past in order to avoid suffering consequences.It is well known that humans exert a lot of effort in order to avoid feelings of regret. Regret can have an immediate impact on influencing decision making, but can also motivate individuals to learn how to avoid future scenarios in which they experience regret. The experience of regret has been demonstrated in nonhuman human animals and it has been seen that they share neurophysiological and behavioral is very similar to that of humans. Although it is still unknown if these animals are able to learn from their regrets.

A study was conducted that presented the first recordings of rodents expressing feelings of regret. This was seen in a task where the rodents were forced to make decisions, this was called Restaraunt Row. Rats who had have food-restrictions placed upon them were trained to spend a small amount of time earning food rewards of different costs and exhibited stable valuation policies of willingness to wait for cued offer costs. In some instances, these rats would take advantage of their time given and would skip low cost offers to learn that worse offers were to follow. Following these economic mistakes, the rats looked back on these instances with regret and learned from their mistakes and displayed corrective decision making.

After a while, the mice learned how to make efficient and the most rewarding economic decision-making strategies. The mice’s response time was much quicker and made quicker decisions as to where they traveled in the food reward maze they were placed in. The mice made better economic decisions after suffering the consequences of mistakes they made in past instances and the regret they felt.