Tell Me about Regret: Studying Regret Inferences from Written Stories in Adults and Children

Emotional development relies on the development of emotional concepts and emotion labels. We examined 3rd-5th grade children’s ability to label and identify regret and disappointment – i.e., choosing an emotional label or reporting an emotional intensity among a pre-established list of emotions. Sixty-one 3rd-grade children, 63 4th-grade children, 71 5th-grade children and 80 adults (18-30 years) read short stories (116 words on average) designed to elicit sadness, anger, shame, guilt, disappointment and regret. We assessed emotion labeling by asking participants to label the emotions felt after each story, and we assessed emotional identification through the reporting of the intensity with which they felt listed emotions. Children identified disappointment at 8-9 years, and regret at 10-11 years. However, regret and disappointment labeling remained rare at 10-11 years. Our results indicate that the identification of these emotions precedes their labeling and show a developmental increase in regret and disappointment recognition from 3rd to 5th grade.