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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 30, 2026

Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood

Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood

Published on: February 11, 2017

The development of regret.

Eimear O'Connor¹, Teresa McCormack, Aidan Feeney

¹School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK. eoconnor06@qub.ac.uk

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

|August 20, 2011

Summary

Children aged 6-7 years can experience regret and explain their negative feelings by comparing outcomes. Younger children (4-5 years) did not show evidence of regret in this study.

Area of Science:

Developmental Psychology
Cognitive Development
Emotional Development

Background:

Understanding the emergence of complex emotions like regret in children is crucial for developmental psychology.
Previous research has explored children's understanding of fairness and decision-making, but the specific age of regret onset requires further investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

To determine the age at which children begin to experience and understand regret.
To investigate whether children can articulate the reasons for their regret based on counterfactual thinking.

Main Methods:

Two experiments involved children aged 4-9 years playing a game where they chose between two boxes for a prize.
Children rated their feelings about their chosen prize before and after observing the prize in the unchosen box.

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Explanations for changes in feelings were collected, particularly on regret trials where the unchosen box held a better prize.

Main Results:

Evidence suggests that children aged 6-7 years experience regret, evidenced by their ability to explain feeling worse when a better prize was available.
Children aged 4-5 years did not demonstrate regret in the experimental conditions.
By 6-7 years, children's emotional responses were influenced by considering multiple counterfactual scenarios.

Conclusions:

The capacity for regret emerges around 6-7 years of age, linked to the ability to engage in counterfactual reasoning.
This developmental milestone indicates a growing sophistication in children's emotional and cognitive appraisal of outcomes.