The role of self-discrepancies in distinguishing regret from guilt

Regret and guilt are self-conscious emotions. They stem from negative events for which people feel responsible. Both emotions reflect discrepancies between how people are (their “actual” self) and how they would like to be (their “ideal” or “ought” self). We examined whether regret and guilt were related to different self-discrepancies (i.e., “ideal” and “ought” self-discrepancies). Two studies (total N = 1998) with Chinese and US participants found that people feel more regret over ideal self-discrepancies than over ought self-discrepancies, whereas for guilt this is more complex. We also found a main effect for culture such that ideal self-discrepancies were associated more with both emotions in the USA compared to China. Implications for the differences between regret and guilt are discussed.