Key points

Anticipated regret is why people often prefer to stand still rather than move forward.

People with narcissistic disorders experience regret as humiliating.

Many people with narcissistic disorders have difficulty making decisions because of their fear of shame.

Daniel Kahneman, the Israeli psychologist and economist who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002 for his work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, argues that fear of regret is the greatest enemy of good decision-making.

In an insightful article on the psychological roots of why people resist taking the COVID-19 vaccine, Adam Galinsky uses Kahneman’s theory to explain why we need prompts: Many people fear making a bad decision because they are influenced by the psychology of anticipated regret. When humans make decisions, they engage in cost-benefit analysis. But potentially bad outcomes weigh more heavily on the mind than equally or even more likely positive outcomes.

People expect to feel the greatest regret when the outcomes result from taking action rather than refusing to act. Kahneman found that people expect to feel more regret if they lose money buying new stocks than if they take a loss on their existing stocks. This regret is even greater when the action is voluntary rather than commanded.

Anticipated regret is why people often prefer to stand still rather than move forward.

Applying this logic to vaccination mandates, Galinsky argues that mandates externalize the responsibility for vaccination—shifting it from the self to others—making it easier to go ahead and get the shot. People don’t have to worry so much about anticipated regret; they can blame their company, city, or state for mandating the vaccination.

Chris Guthrie, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, has applied Kahneman’s theory to litigation. Guthrie has found that individuals will seek to make decisions that reduce the likelihood of regret after the decision is made. Regret is more likely to arise when individuals discover that they would have had a better outcome had they made a different decision. Guthrie has found that people who have to choose between settlement and trial prefer settlement because it reduces the likelihood of regret. Settlement reduces regret by allowing litigants to avoid discovering that trial might have been the better decision; trial offers no such protection. Kahneman’s theory explains why decision-making is difficult for all of us. But for people with narcissistic personality disorder, the fear of regret is stronger because they are not simply worried about making a mistake or afraid of failing; they experience regret as humiliating. The traits we associate with narcissistic personalities, such as grandiose fantasies and a sense of entitlement, are defenses against shame. People with shame issues are likely to have grown up in an environment where they were not allowed to make mistakes and mistakes were humiliating.

Fear of shame can also affect decision-making.

Jessica had been with Dennis for over 20 years but refused to marry. Because she had been married before, she knew she could get divorced if the marriage didn’t work out, but the perceived shame of making a decision she would regret was so strong that she consistently turned down Dennis’s advances.

Karen knew that her company’s board of directors would ask her to resign when she was 60, so at age 59, she interviewed for other jobs. She got an offer that would pay her as much as her current job, but she turned it down. She feared feeling ashamed if she left and later regretted it. After a year, she was fired.

Sam is unhappy in a sexless marriage; he and his wife fight constantly. Multiple attempts at marriage counseling have not helped. Sam stays in the marriage because he fears that he will feel ashamed if he leaves and has any regrets.

In general, the fear of regret is the greatest enemy of making good decisions. But for people with narcissistic issues, this fear is compounded by the fear of shame. There are so many decisions in life: buying a house, quitting a job, getting married, having a child, or getting divorced. Being stuck in the status quo because of a fear of regret is hard enough, but not moving forward because of a fear of shame if it doesn’t work out can be even more powerful and paralyzing.