Life Recollections and Personality

Previous research has found that social regrets are the most frequent and intense regrets that we tend to experience and that they impact our sense of belongingness. The present study investigated how social regrets impact motivation and if personality traits such as extraversion and dispositions such as self-esteem and self-efficacy act as moderators of the relationship between social regrets and motivation. 159 participants were randomly assigned to provide either high social impact regret or low social impact regrets or to describe an event factually(control condition), and completed measures of self-esteem, self-efficacy, motivation and extraversion. Results indicated that individuals who provided higher social impact regrets had higher extrinsic motivation than those in other conditions. However, it was those in the control condition who had the highest level of motivational drive and no significant interaction effects were found. Implications and potential future research are discussed. LIFE RECOLLECTIONS AND PERSONALITY 3 Life Recollections and Personality People often look back at their past experiences and wish they had done something different. Regrets are something that everyone has experienced at some point in their life, regardless of the person’s age, gender or ethnicity. Regret can be defined as a negative emotion that occurs on the realization that a different past behaviour might have yielded a better outcome than what actually transpired (Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2007). Regrets are pervasive in daily life, Shimanoff (1984) stated that regrets are the second most frequently reported emotion after love. Regrets often result in self-blame for an undesired event and it has been found that individuals who overly reminisce on their regrets report lower life satisfaction and distress (Schwartz, Ward, Monterosso, Lyubormirsky, White & Lehman, 2002). Despite, the common view that regrets are undesirable, as they are often associated with negative emotions, regrets don’t necessarily need to be a bad thing. Much research has supported the idea that regrets lead to adverse effects when experiencing them and/or recalling them; however, more recently, focus has shifted to a more positive view, acknowledging the value gained from experiencing regrets in that they can motivate us to improve our behaviours (see Epstude & Roese, 2008 and Pieters & Zeelenberg, 2007 for reviews). Recent findings have suggested that individuals recognize that regrets can bring psychological benefits in terms of self-improvement (Saffrey, Summerville, & Roese, 2008). However, there are many kinds of regrets that people can experience in different stages of their lives that have different consequences. For instance, there are social regrets that involve friends and/or family, such as the person wishing they had told a loved one something before they passed away or wishing they had acted in a different way around a person. Moreover, regrets can be work or education related, such as wishing they had worked harder towards a promotion or LIFE RECOLLECTIONS AND PERSONALITY 4 had studied harder for an exam. Recent research has shown that social regrets are the most common and intense regrets we tend to experience (Morrison, Epstude & Roese, 2012; Morrison & Roese, 2011). As regrets are very common in people’s lives it is important to understand their relationships with different personality traits and dispositions that people possess that are affected the most by regrets. This is important because not a lot of research to date has investigated these effects, resulting in a lack of knowledge of how people with different personality traits and dispositions can be affected by only certain regrets. Perhaps some individuals are more likely to benefit from regrets whereas for others regrets contribute to more negative than positive effects. For these reason, the present research will examine how social regrets impact individual’s motivation, and how it is moderated by individual dispositions. Regrets and Need to belong As human beings, we have an innate drive to feel included and part of something. The belongingness hypothesis suggests that human beings have a pervasive drive to form and maintain at least a minimum quality of lasting, positive and significant interpersonal relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Moreover, people’s need to belong is crucial to many aspects of human functioning, and a lack of belongingness can endanger people both physically and psychologically, leading to an adverse effect on a person’s well-being. For example, a lack of belongingness can cause strong negative emotions such as unhappiness and anger. Furthermore, it can also have an adverse effect on mental health, as it has been found to be associated with depression and anxiety (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Physical implications have also been seen to result from having a perceived lack of belongingness, as there has been a direct link to effects of the immune system and elevated cortisol levels (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In support for the belongingness hypothesis, a study by Pillow, Malone and Hale (2015), LIFE RECOLLECTIONS AND PERSONALITY 5 found that lack of belongingness was associated with a negative self-view, negative working models of relationships, worry and anxiety and an overall negative affect on well-being. These findings provide evidence on the powerful negative influence a lack of sense of belongingness can have on an individual. Consistent with this, regrets that threaten one’s need to belong tend to be the most intense, but this intensity also has the potential to feed motivation (Morrison, Epstude, & Roese, 2012). Regret Regulation Theory and Social Regrets Regret regulation theory can help explain why people experiencing or reliving a regret would feel more motivated than people not experiencing regret. This perspective holds that a regret is an aversive, cognitive emotion that people are motivated to regulate in order to maximize outcomes in the short term and learn maximizing them in the long run (Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2007). Furthermore, it suggests that the intensity of the regret is dependent on how important the decision was to the individual and the likelihood of changing the outcome that resulted from the regretted decision (Pieters & Zeelenberg, 2007). In addition, research has found that the most common types of regrets are those involving romance and family (Morrison & Roese, 2011). Other research suggests that social regrets that involve family and friends are the most intense regrets and that regret intensity is mediated by the extent to which the regret threatens one’s sense of belongingness (Morrison, Epstude & Roese, 2012). These findings can be explained by the belongingness hypothesis that states that individual have a human drive to create and maintain interpersonal relationships (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Prior research indicates that regrets can serve as a powerful motivator to take corrective action for past experiences that went awry (for a review see Epstude & Roese, 2008). Therefore, this supports the idea that with social regrets being the most intense regrets of all, they LIFE RECOLLECTIONS AND PERSONALITY 6 can have a major impact on an individual’s behaviour. In terms of regrets motivating corrective action, work by Saffrey and colleagues (2008), concluded that although regrets were seen as a negative emotion, they usually have a positive aspect to them and are viewed in positive way. That is, it was concluded that regrets were associated with making sense of past experiences and attaining insight of self. Importantly, it was found to facilitate approach behaviour. Consistent with the findings of Saffrey and colleagues (2008), a study by Smallman and Roese (2009), has found that upward counterfactuals (thinking about how an event could have turned out differently) are can facilitate changing intentions and improving performance. This study found that having upward counterfactual thoughts can influence relevant behaviour; however, it was also concluded that considering alternatives can induce unrelated behaviour change. Therefore, a counterfactual in one aspect of an individual’s life such as work can in turn result in different behaviour in another aspect such as their romantic relationship, suggesting that a problem could activate counterfactual thinking, which can in turn lead to change in intentions. Moreover, another study concluded that significant others could stimulate goals in a person, regardless of whether the goal was something the person wanted for themselves or it was a goal the significant other wanted for the person (Morrison, Wheeler & Smeesters, 2007). Results revealed that individuals are more likely to achieve goals that a significant other wanted for them, than goals they had for themselves. Furthermore, it was found that significant others had the ability to change and direct the person’s behaviour. Notably, it was concluded that individuals who scored high in the need to belong were more likely to pursue goals that significant others had for them, regardless if they held the goal for themselves. These findings can help explain why social regrets that threaten the person’s need to belong can influence motivation, as it shown that significant others have a high influence on behaviour. LIFE RECOLLECTIONS AND PERSONALITY 7 Therefore, there seems to be a connection between past experience and future outcomes, as people are able to learn from their experiences and strive to achieve a more desirable outcome in the future. Motivation and Personality Traits and Dispositions Other research has examined motivation and self-esteem, such as, a study by Murphy and Roopchand (2003) that used a student sample to investigate the relationship between intrinsic motivation towards learning and self-esteem, in mature and traditional students. It was concluded that there was a positive significant relationship