NT Experience
“I knew better; I wish I could choose differently.”
In NT people regret is a judgment of actions or outcomes, a feeling of “I did a bad thing”:
- the brain compares the actual outcome with a simulated better outcome
- this does not require Social Salience – it can represent a missed opportunity or an error
Regret triggers an affective state of disappointment or sorrow localized to the event.
My Experience: Functional Regret
I feel shame for roughly the same circumstances – I recognize an inefficient outcome. It might be social Friction, it might be something I said (probably also friction), it might be something I did.
If I had to do it over I might make another choice. I have no affective state (feeling) about it – social friction causes no distress, just regret at lack of efficiency.
I think regret stands in for a number of emotions that I can’t feel:
If I had a high magnitude failure, something that violated my Ethics, like being negligent and causing somebody physical harm I would feel Integrity Distress. I am not feeling the victim’s pain, I am feeling an internal pain due to the failure of my own standards.
Semantic Divergence: yes, but less than most.