Choosing to Regret: The Effect of Choice on Children’s Early Experience of Regret and Relief
Daniel P Weisberg, Sarah R Beck School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, UK. Contact: DXW401@bham.ac.uk
Introduction
There is scarce literature on the development of children’s experience of regret and relief. One of the only tasks that has been used is a game in which children themselves make decisions that led to regret or relief1. Results suggest that from the age of 5 children experience regret and relief. However, it is not until 7 years that children experience relief after losing. Adults exaggerate their perceived control of events when choice and involvement are key factors3. Partly due to this, adults are more likely to experience regret and relief when they feel responsible for the outcome. So how does choice impact on children’s experience of regret and relief? Using a simple decision making game, we investigated children’s early experiences of regret and relief under three conditions (1) Choice, in which the participant chooses between one of two cards, (2) No Choice-Child, in which the participant rolls a die that determines which card is to be turned over and (3) No Choice-Experimenter, in which the experimenter rolls a die that determines which card is to be turned over. In accordance with adult behaviour4,5, we expect that children do not experience regret and relief when there is no self-blame.
Results
Participants received a score of O (incorrect) or 1 (correct) for their responses. Chance responding was at 33%. Binomial sign tests were implemented to check for experiences of regret and relief.
The Games Task
(1) Choice (a) Participants choose between two face down cards. The cards state differing quantities of stars and WIN or LOSE (2) No Choice-Child (3) No Choice-Experimenter (a) Participant (2) / Experimenter (3) rolls a dice that determines the colour of a face down card to be given. The cards state differing quantities of stars and WIN or LOSE
* p ≤ .05
** p ≤ .004
Shaded area represents the arrow expected to be chosen
When children had the choice, they experienced regret from 5 years after losing but not after winning. These children also experienced relief after winning from 5 years. This replicates the pattern found in previous research. Children did not experience relief after losing, but the 7-8-year-olds approached significance. When children had no choice but rolled the die, the experience of regret was reduced for all 3 age groups: The 5-6-year-olds did not experience regret, but did experience relief after winning The 6-7- and 7-8-year-olds experienced neither regret nor relief When children watched the experimenter roll the die (i.e. had no responsibility at all), regret and relief were not experienced whatsoever.
(b) Rate their feelings about their chosen card
(b) Rate their feelings about their given card
Conclusions
We found that choice is vital for an experience of counterfactual emotions. Children must feel responsible for the outcome in order to experience regret and relief, just as adults do. (c) View the contents of the non-chosen card (c) View the contents of the non-given card Having partial responsibility diminishes the experience of regret and relief, perhaps providing reason to why we find ways not to blame ourselves in regretful situations. When there is no self-blame, counterfactual emotions are not experienced. The functions of counterfactual thinking under these is the subject of further research. Our choice condition replicates previous research, especially with the 7-8-year-olds who are seen to be the first age group to begin to experience relief after losing. (d) Rate their feelings about their first card once again. (d) Rate their feelings about their first card once again. Future work investigating the development of regret and relief can use the task featured in our choice condition. Our results also effectively rule out the possibility that children are just frustrated when they lose. However, the sample sizes spread over the conditions are small, and the power of our results would be strengthened by including more participants. The developmental counterfactual emotions literature is still young and future work includes investigating the youngest age that children can pass the self condition of the games task. The literature suggests no younger than 5-years-old6. N = 139 age 5-6, n = 45, m = 6;5, r = 5;11 to 6;10, 24 males age 6-7, n = 44, m= 7;6, r = 6;11 to 7;10, 25 males age 7-8, n = 50, m= 8;6, r = 7;11 to 8;10, 31 males card Alternative card
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