1. Regional Values and Their Effect on American Regret
Haley Dapkus
Stephanie Limoncelli

2. Individual regrets are directly influenced by national values.
•Collectivists put more value on the society as a whole and so have more regrets about abnormal or anti-social behavior that could effect their position in the group
•according to ITIM INTERNATIONAL, CONSULTING FORM studying national culture on an international scale

3. American Values Education Career Romance Parenting Self Leisure
•Capitalism, self improvement, regret inaction and fear regret
•Many studies have examined America’s individualistic values compared to collectivist countries, but few look at the differences in values from US state to state.
•Education, then career, romance, parenting, self, and leisure are the most popular American values, and regrets follow accordingly.
•Pleasure over pain and anxiety that go with regret
Parenting
Self
Leisure

4. American Youth Relationships Education Leisure Self Career
•When studies focus on America’s youth, the order changes to: romance, friends, education, leisure, self, career (Roese).
•Technology, organized, immediate. Developed social movements #YOLO, #FOMO.
•Young people are more likely to regret action, because the events happened more recently and they have further time for action in the future.
•Religion, practices of the area, cultural tradition, economic status
Education
Leisure
Self
Career

5. How do regional values influence the regrets of individual American between the ages of 20 and 30?

6. Travel across the country by train, polling individuals 20-30 on their regrets.
San Francisco (CA), Salt Lake City (UT), Denver (CO), Omaha (NE), Chicago (IL), New York (NY)

7. Methods and Expected Results

8. References
Gilovich, Thomas “Regrets of Action and Inaction Across Cultures.” Journal of Cross Cultural Psychology 34 (1)
Greenberg, Melanie “The Neuroscience of Regret.” Psychology Today, Jun 1. Received Oct 13, 2015. (
Greenberg, Melanie “The Psychology of Regret.” Psychology Today, May 16. Retrieved Oct 12, (
Keller, Jared “The Psychology (and Philosophy) of ‘No Regrets.’” Pacific Standard, Apr 17. Retrieved Oct 10, 2015. (
Markman, Art “I regret what I did, and I regret what I did not become.” Psychology Today, Dec 16. Retrieved Oct 12, (
Olmstead, Gracy “Epicureanism and Regret in Modern Culture.” The American Conservative, Oct 19. Retrieved Oct 10, (
Roese, Neal J "What We Regret Most… and Why." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31(9):
Saad, Gad “Is Regret Experienced Differently Across Cultures?” Psychology Today, Aug 30. Retrieved Oct 10, (
Taekyun, Hur “Regrets in the East and West: Role of intrapersonal versus interpersonal norms.” Asian Journal of Social Psychology 12(2):