Admitir abiertamente un error grave vs. ocultarlo o eludirlo
Si actúas
Admitir abiertamente el error grave
14%
Si no actúas
Ocultar o desviar el error grave
40%
Porcentaje de quienes luego se arrepienten de cada elección. Las barras y el registro completo aparecen abajo.
Estilo de vida
Última revisión 2026-05-13
Calidad de la evidencia 3.38/5
Puntuación de revisión en ocho dimensiones según la
rúbrica de calidad
. Cada dimensión puntuada de 1 a 5.
D1 Verificación de fuentes
3/5
D2 Autoridad e independencia de las fuentes
3/5
D3 Precisión de la tasa de arrepentimiento
2/5
D4 Comparabilidad de las fuentes
2/5
D5 Patrón de Gilovich
4/5
D6 Calidad de la prosa
4/5
D7 Completitud de las advertencias
5/5
D8 Calidad de la muestra
4/5
Media3.38/5
Datos sustitutos — no existe ninguna encuesta directa sobre el arrepentimiento para esta decisión. Las tasas se derivan de puntuaciones de satisfacción y datos de barreras de acceso en lugar de preguntas que preguntaban directamente sobre el arrepentimiento. Ver advertencias más abajo.
Arrepentimiento por acción
Admitir abiertamente el error grave
14%
ninguna encuesta directa mide esto; el ~14% es un proxy del autor para la minoría cuya confesión resulta contraproducente (daño profesional o en las relaciones), anclado en la evidencia sobre la dirección del efecto de que admitir la culpa se valora ampliamente y repara la confianza — no una tasa medida de personas que confiesan y declaran malos resultados
Profesionales y adultos que revelaron un error significativo
encuesta transversal, 2015; experimental, 2004
Arrepentimiento por inacción
Ocultar o desviar el error grave
40%
ninguna encuesta directa mide esto; el ~40% es un proxy del autor anclado en el hallazgo de la World Regret Survey de que los arrepentimientos morales (que incluyen encubrir errores) están entre los tipos de arrepentimiento más intensos y persistentes — no una tasa medida de quienes encubren y declaran culpa continuada
Adultos que ocultaron conscientemente un error personal o profesional significativo
estimaciones clínicas, 2021; encuesta de arrepentimiento a gran escala, 2021
% que se arrepienten de esta elección
Admitir abiertamente el error graveOcultar o desviar el error grave
14%40%
inaction dominates — Domina la inacción — la mayoría se arrepiente de no actuar.
Decisiones relacionadas
Decisiones semánticamente similares — mismo terreno, distintos compromisos.
The peer-reviewed and survey evidence consistently points to admitting a serious mistake producing positive outcomes for most people in most contexts. Ma and colleagues’ experimental trust-game study (Frontiers in Psychology, 2019) found that receiving an apology — an admission of fault — made participants more likely to trust their counterpart than receiving no apology, an effect mediated by perceived trustworthiness; the benefit held for those experiencing less negative emotion and weakened for those still highly aggrieved. A Dale Carnegie Training survey of nearly 3,100 employees across 13 countries (reported in The Public Manager) found that 81 percent of respondents valued a leader who admits when they are wrong, while only 41 percent felt their supervisors could be trusted to do so consistently — the largest importance-versus-practice gap of any leadership behavior surveyed. Neither source measures how often admission backfires on the person who admits, so the ~14 percent action rate shown here is not a measured consequence rate but an author proxy: a small-minority estimate for the subset of disclosures made in hierarchical, punitive, or high-emotion environments where admission is weaponised against the person who made it. It is flagged proxy_only and should be read as a directional estimate, not a survey statistic.
The inaction side has no direct survey: no published study reports the proportion of people who concealed a serious mistake and later report ongoing guilt or regret about the concealment itself. The ~40% rate shown here is an explicit author proxy (the entry is flagged proxy_only), anchored only on direction-of-effect evidence. Daniel Pink’s World Regret Survey (n=26,000+, 105 countries) is the strongest anchor: moral regrets — the category that includes covering up mistakes and acting against one’s own values — make up roughly 10 percent of all reported regrets but are rated among the most emotionally intense and long-lasting of all regret types. Secrecy research synthesised by Slepian (Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2024; ~1,000 participants, thousands of secrets) finds that the more a person’s mind wanders to a concealed matter, the more it harms well-being, with concealment associated with lower life satisfaction, anxiety, and isolation. Both lines of evidence point to concealment carrying a sustained psychological cost, but neither establishes a rate; the 40% figure should be read as a directional estimate, not a measured survey statistic.
The regret_delta of -0.26 reflects the pattern identified by Gilovich and Medvec across multiple decision domains: in the short term, admission is the more painful option — the immediate exposure, embarrassment, and risk of negative consequences are concrete and salient, while the long-term cost of concealment is diffuse and delayed. Over time, this asymmetry reverses. People who admitted mistakes and survived the consequences generally move past them; people who concealed significant errors carry the ongoing psychological burden of concealment and the escalating risk of discovery. The Gilovich inaction-dominance pattern fits this entry well. The main caveat is context: in highly hierarchical or legally consequential environments, where admission carries career-ending or criminal risk, the action-regret rate can approach or exceed the inaction-regret rate, and the entry’s inaction-dominance finding should not be applied to those high-stakes outlier situations without accounting for the specific professional and legal context.
Fuentes: acción
Registro de evidencia
Cada número a continuación es lo que reportó cada fuente, con la cita textual en la que nos basamos y cómo llegamos a nuestra cifra. Haz clic en cualquier enlace para verificarlo directamente.
2/2 fuentes verificadas de forma independiente palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada
[1]The Public Manager (Association for Talent Development), reporting Dale Carnegie Training survey — The Value of Acknowledging Your Mistakes
Verificado
Fuente de referencia
In a Dale Carnegie Training survey of nearly 3,100 employees across 13 countries, 81% said having a leader who admits when they are wrong is important or very important to inspiring their best efforts, but only 41% said their supervisors could be trusted to do so consistently -- a 40-point gap, the largest of any leadership behavior surveyed.
Extracto
“A recent online survey conducted by Dale Carnegie Training of nearly 3,100 employees across 13 countries found that "admitting when they are wrong" produced the largest gap of any of the leadership behaviors in terms of the difference between its importance to employees and its consistent performance by supervisors. Eighty-one percent of respondents said that having a leader who will admit to being wrong is important or very important to inspiring them to give their best efforts at work, but only 41 percent said their supervisors could be trusted to do so consistently -- a gap of 40 percent.
”
Datos de la fuente de
2016-01-01
Accedido
2026-07-01
Verificación
Extracto recuperado de forma independiente y confirmado palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada durante nuestra auditoría de fundamentación.
Cálculo
Dale Carnegie Training survey, n=~3,100 across 13 countries, reported in The Public Manager (Association for Talent Development). This source measures the VALUE employees place on leaders admitting mistakes: 81% say it is important, but only 41% see it consistently -- a 40-point importance-vs-practice gap. CRITICAL: it does NOT measure the proportion of people who admitted a serious mistake and later faced negative career consequences or regretted the admission. It cannot anchor a specific action-side regret rate. It supports only the DIRECTION -- admission is broadly valued, and a majority of employees would rather work under leaders who admit error -- consistent with a low action-side regret rate, but the ~14% magnitude is an author proxy disclosed in the regret_display, not a figure from this survey. Replaces a prior citation to a Workstars blog URL that carried a "14% faced lasting negative career consequences" figure the source does not contain (that consequence rate could not be located in any published survey).
[2]Frontiers in Psychology (PubMed Central), Ma et al. 2019 — Apologies Repair Trust via Perceived Trustworthiness and Negative Emotions
Verificado
Revisado por pares
Experimental trust-game study (PMC6457316): participants who received an apology (an admission of fault) were more likely to trust their counterpart than those who did not, mediated by perceived trustworthiness; the benefit held for those with less negative emotion.
Extracto
“Participants who received an apology were more likely to trust in their counterpart, compared to those who did not receive an apology, and this relationship was mediated by perceptions of the transgressor's trustworthiness. Additionally, the relationship between apologies and perceptions of the transgressor's trustworthiness was moderated by negative emotions; apologies only improved perceptions of trustworthiness for participants who experienced less negative emotions.
”
Datos de la fuente de
2019-04-03
Accedido
2026-07-01
Verificación
Extracto recuperado de forma independiente y confirmado palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada durante nuestra auditoría de fundamentación.
Cálculo
Ma, Wylie, Luo, He, Jiang, Zhang, Xu and Evans (2019), Frontiers in Psychology, PMC6457316. Experimental trust-game study on trust repair after a violation. Cited as corroborating authoritative source for the action side: admitting fault (apologizing) generally repairs trust and improves perceived trustworthiness relative to not apologizing -- but the effect is dampened when the wronged party holds strong negative emotion. This supports the DIRECTION that admission is broadly beneficial (low action-side regret) while noting a moderating condition (high-emotion / adversarial contexts) where admission helps less. It does NOT provide a percentage of admitters who regret admitting, so it supports the direction only, not the ~14% proxy magnitude. Replaces a prior citation to Lozano and Laurent (2019, PLoS ONE, PMC6405044): that paper is real but its actual finding concerns whether observers expect OTHER unrelated agents to shift blame, and it does not support the excerpt previously attributed to it.
Fuentes: inacción
Registro de evidencia
Cada número a continuación es lo que reportó cada fuente, con la cita textual en la que nos basamos y cómo llegamos a nuestra cifra. Haz clic en cualquier enlace para verificarlo directamente.
1/2 fuentes verificadas de forma independiente palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada
[1]Current Directions in Psychological Science (Slepian, 2024) — The New Psychology of Secrecy
Verificado
Revisado por pares
Across studies of ~1,000 participants holding thousands of secrets, the more frequently people's minds wander to a concealed secret, the more that secret harms their well-being -- mind-wandering to secrets is related to lower life satisfaction, anxiety, and loneliness. (The research reports correlational associations, not a percentage of concealers who regret concealing.)
Extracto
“The more frequently people's minds wander to their secrets (outside of concealment contexts), the more those secrets harm their well-being. Mind wandering to secrets increases feelings of shame, isolation, uncertainty, and inauthenticity and is related to lower life satisfaction, anxiety, and loneliness. Frequent concealment of secrets is not by itself associated with stress; the harm comes from repetitive thinking about the concealed information rather than the act of concealment during conversations.
”
Datos de la fuente de
2024-06-01
Accedido
2026-06-30
Verificación
Extracto recuperado de forma independiente y confirmado palabra por palabra frente a la fuente citada durante nuestra auditoría de fundamentación.
Cálculo
Slepian (2024), "The New Psychology of Secrecy," Current Directions in Psychological Science, Vol. 33 Issue 3, synthesizing the secrecy research program (Slepian et al. 2017 onward, ~1,000 participants, thousands of secrets). Cited as authoritative evidence that concealing a significant matter is associated with sustained psychological burden (lower life satisfaction, anxiety, isolation) via repetitive mind-wandering. CRITICAL: this body of work reports correlational associations between secrecy and well-being -- it does NOT report a percentage of people who concealed a mistake and report ongoing guilt or regret. It cannot anchor a specific rate. It supports only the DIRECTION (concealment carries ongoing cost), not the 40% proxy magnitude, which remains an author estimate disclosed in the regret_display. Replaces a prior Psychology Today citation that had been attributed a "40-60% longitudinal clinical" figure the source does not contain (the source is qualitative clinical commentary with no percentages).
[2]Daniel H. Pink / worldregretsurvey.com — World Regret Survey↗ 3 other entries
Estudio primario
n=26,000+ respondents across 105 countries: moral regrets -- acting against one's own values, including covering up mistakes -- constitute approximately 10% of all regrets but are rated among the most emotionally intense and long-lasting of all regret categories.
Extracto
“[Paraphrase from World Regret Survey data and Pink, The Power of Regret (2022).] The World Regret Survey (n=26,000+, 105 countries) found that moral regrets -- situations where people acted against their own values, including concealing mistakes, deceiving others, or acting unethically when they knew better -- are disproportionately intense relative to their frequency. While moral regrets constitute approximately 10 percent of all regrets reported, they are rated among the highest in emotional intensity, persistence, and disruption to wellbeing. Pink identifies moral regrets as one of four "deep structure" regret categories that persist across cultures and demographic groups.
”
Datos de la fuente de
2021-01-01
Accedido
2026-05-13
Cálculo
Daniel H. Pink, World Regret Survey (2021), n=26,000+ across 105 countries. Primary authoritative anchor for the inaction-side proxy: moral regrets (the category that encompasses covering up serious mistakes) constitute roughly 10% of all reported regrets but are rated among the most emotionally intense and long-lasting of all regret types. CRITICAL: the survey does NOT measure "what proportion of people who concealed a mistake regret it" -- that is a category-share and intensity finding, not a rate. Moral regrets as a category are the proxy for direction (concealment regret, once present, tends to be severe and persistent rather than transient); they do not establish the ~40% magnitude, which is an author estimate disclosed as a proxy in the regret_display. The prior derivation that blended a non-existent "40-60% clinical midpoint" with this survey to manufacture 51% has been removed.
Advertencias
La tasa de arrepentimiento por acción del ~14% es un proxy explícito del autor (proxy_only), NO una tasa medida: ninguna encuesta publicada informa de la proporción de personas que admitieron un error grave y luego afrontaron consecuencias negativas duraderas o se arrepintieron de la confesión. La única encuesta directa disponible (Dale Carnegie, n=~3.100, 13 países) mide únicamente el VALOR que los empleados otorgan a que los líderes admitan errores — el 81% dice que es importante, el 41% lo ve de forma consistente — no ninguna tasa de consecuencias; y el trabajo experimental (Ma et al. 2019) muestra que la confesión repara ampliamente la confianza, atenuada solo cuando la parte agraviada alberga una emoción negativa fuerte. Ambos anclan la DIRECCIÓN (la confesión es ampliamente beneficiosa, por lo que la tasa de resultado contraproducente es baja) pero ninguno establece la magnitud del 14%, que es una estimación del autor para una pequeña minoría en contextos jerárquicos, punitivos o de alta carga emocional, y puede subestimar la tasa real en las culturas profesionales más punitivas. Una versión anterior de esta entrada atribuía una cifra de "14% afrontó consecuencias profesionales negativas duraderas" a una página del blog Workstars que no la contiene, y citaba un artículo experimental no relacionado (Lozano & Laurent 2019, sobre expectativas de que OTROS agentes desvíen la culpa) con un extracto fabricado; ambos han sido reemplazados por fuentes cuyos extractos son textuales. La tasa del ~40% del lado de la inacción es un proxy explícito del autor (proxy_only), NO una tasa medida: ninguna encuesta publicada informa de la proporción de personas que encubrieron un error grave y declaran culpa o arrepentimiento continuados por el encubrimiento. El proxy está anclado únicamente en la evidencia sobre la dirección del efecto — el hallazgo de la World Regret Survey de que los arrepentimientos morales (que incluyen encubrir errores) están entre los tipos más intensos y persistentes, y la investigación sobre el secretismo (Slepian) que muestra que el ocultamiento se asocia con menor bienestar, ansiedad y aislamiento. Ambos anclan la DIRECCIÓN (el ocultamiento acarrea un coste continuado), no la magnitud. Una versión anterior de esta entrada derivaba una cifra de "51%" mezclando una estadística inexistente de "40-60% clínica longitudinal" (atribuida incorrectamente a un comentario de Psychology Today que no contiene tal número) con el hallazgo cualitativo de intensidad de la World Regret Survey; ese compuesto ha sido eliminado y el lado reetiquetado como un proxy declarado. El contexto importa considerablemente: en entornos muy jerárquicos, políticamente delicados o legalmente relevantes, la confesión conlleva un riesgo profesional mayor de lo que implica la evidencia ampliamente positiva sobre la dirección del efecto (encuesta de Dale Carnegie, Ma et al. 2019), y la tasa de arrepentimiento por acción en esos contextos puede aproximarse o superar la tasa de arrepentimiento por inacción. El hallazgo de dominancia de la inacción de esta entrada se aplica con mayor fuerza a contextos entre pares e interpersonales; en entornos corporativos con gestión estricta del rendimiento, el cálculo de resultados puede invertirse. La decisión tampoco es siempre claramente binaria: muchas personas admiten versiones parciales de los errores, desvían parcialmente la culpa o confiesan a algunos públicos pero no a otros, lo que hace que el marco acción/inacción resulte algo estilizado respecto a la distribución real de comportamientos.
