Pourcentage de personnes qui regrettent ensuite chaque choix. Les barres et le registre complet s’affichent ci-dessous.
Mode de vie
Dernière révision 2026-05-13
Qualité des preuves 3.63/5
Score d’évaluation en huit dimensions selon la
grille de qualité
. Chaque dimension notée de 1 à 5.
D1 Vérification des sources
4/5
D2 Autorité et indépendance des sources
4/5
D3 Précision du taux de regret
2/5
D4 Comparabilité des sources
2/5
D5 Motif de Gilovich
5/5
D6 Qualité de la prose
4/5
D7 Complétude des réserves
5/5
D8 Qualité de l’échantillon
3/5
Moyenne3.63/5
Données de substitution — aucune enquête directe sur les regrets n'existe pour cette décision. Les taux sont dérivés des scores de satisfaction et des obstacles d'accès plutôt que de questions portant directement sur les regrets. Voir les mises en garde ci-dessous.
Regret d'action
Déclarer ses sentiments au risque d'être rejeté
25%
~25% regrettent d'avoir avoué des sentiments qui n'ont pas été réciproques
Adultes américains ayant divulgué des sentiments romantiques, divers échantillons
variable ; les regrets d'action s'estompent plus rapidement que les regrets d'inaction au fil du temps
Regret d'inaction
Se retenir et ne jamais déclarer ses sentiments
44%
44% des femmes (19% des hommes) rapportent un regret d'inaction romantique
Adultes américains de 19 à 103 ans, étude Northwestern University / Summerville
rétrospective à vie
% regrettent ce choix
Déclarer ses sentiments au risque d'être rejetéSe retenir et ne jamais déclarer ses sentiments
25%44%
inaction dominates — L'inaction domine — la plupart regrettent de ne pas avoir agi.
Décisions associées
Décisions sémantiquement similaires — même terrain, compromis différents.
Roese and Summerville’s meta-analysis of nine articles (11 data sets) found that romance is the third-most-cited regret domain, accounting for 14.8% of regrets behind education (32.2%) and career (22.3%), and that across regrets generally, those of action are more intense in the short term while those of inaction persist longer and intensify over time. A separate Northwestern/Kellogg study of 370 adults ages 19 to 103 found that 44% of women reported some romance-related regret (versus 19% of men), with those regrets prominently including someone they had feelings for but never pursued — the canonical “one that got away” — and never entering a particular relationship. There is no direct survey asking people who confessed romantic feelings and were rejected whether they regret the disclosure, so the action-regret rate of roughly 25% is a derived proxy, not a measured figure: it is anchored to the documented temporal pattern in which action regrets fade while inaction regrets endure.
Daniel Pink’s World Regret Survey, which has gathered more than 26,000 regrets from people in 134 countries, found that inaction regrets outnumber action regrets roughly two to one overall — a gap that widens to about three to one by people’s 50s — with connection and romance among the most consistently cited durable regret themes. This ratio is consistent with Gilovich and Medvec’s foundational temporal model, which holds that unexplored counterfactuals — “what if I had said something?” — remain open-ended and available to ruminate over, while action regrets are constrained by actual outcomes that eventually lose their emotional charge. Rejection, even when painful, forecloses the uncertainty; silence does not.
The main caveat is that the inaction-regret rate is anchored to the female rate from a single study conducted before app-mediated dating became dominant. Using the blended male-and-female rate from the same study (approximately 30 to 32%) would narrow the regret delta to around 0.05 to 0.07, still inaction-dominant but less dramatically so. The action-regret rate of 25% is estimated from indirect evidence rather than directly measured by a survey asking people who confessed romantic feelings whether they regret having done so. Both primary academic sources are more than 15 years old, and the emotional costs and norms around disclosure may differ for younger cohorts who navigate rejection through digital mediation. The directional finding that romantic inaction produces more durable regret than romantic action is among the most replicated results in regret research.
Sources : action
Registre des sources
Chaque chiffre ci-dessous correspond à ce que la source a rapporté, avec la citation textuelle sur laquelle nous nous sommes appuyés et la méthode de calcul. Cliquez sur un lien pour vérifier directement.
1/1 sources vérifiées de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée
[1]Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (NIH/PMC) — What We Regret Most ... and Why
Vérifié
↗ 13 other entries
Revue par les pairs
Romance ranks #3 among regret domains (14.8% of all regrets); regrets of action are more intense in the short term while regrets of inaction are more intense over the long term
Extrait
“"romance ranked number three (14.8%, SD = 2.34) ... regrets of action are more intense in the short term; regrets of inaction are more intense over the long term ... regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action."
”
Données source de
2005-09-01
Consulté le
2026-05-13
Vérification
Extrait récupéré et confirmé de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée lors de notre audit de vérification.
Calcul
Roese and Summerville (2005), meta-analysis of nine published articles containing 11 data sets on regret domains, plus a college sample. Romance is the third-most-cited regret domain (14.8%), behind education (32.2%) and career (22.3%). There is no direct survey asking people who confessed romantic feelings and were rejected whether they regret the disclosure, so the 0.25 action- regret rate is a derived proxy, not a measured figure. It is anchored to the paper's documented temporal pattern: action regrets are more intense in the short term but fade, while inaction regrets persist and intensify over the long term, implying durable action-disclosure regret is the minority outcome. proxy_only is set on this entry to disclose that no direct regret-framed survey of this construct exists.
Sources : inaction
Registre des sources
Chaque chiffre ci-dessous correspond à ce que la source a rapporté, avec la citation textuelle sur laquelle nous nous sommes appuyés et la méthode de calcul. Cliquez sur un lien pour vérifier directement.
1/3 sources vérifiées de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée
[1]Association for Psychological Science — Women More Likely Than Men to Have a Love Regret, NU Study Shows
Vérifié
Source de référence
44% of women and 19% of men in the sample reported some romance-related regret; women's regrets included 'the one that got away' and never entering a relationship
Extrait
“"When asked, about 44 percent of women and 19 percent of men said they regretted something related to romance, according to the study by the Kellogg School of Management in Evanston ... Those who discussed their lost loves focused on 'the one that got away' regrets, as well as regrets that they had never entered into a particular relationship."
”
Données source de
2008-07-28
Consulté le
2026-05-13
Vérification
Extrait récupéré et confirmé de manière indépendante, mot pour mot, par rapport à la source citée lors de notre audit de vérification.
Calcul
Summerville and Roese study of 370 US adults ages 19-103, drawn from a Northwestern/Kellogg sample. The 44% figure is the women's prevalence of ANY romance-related regret (not an inaction-only subset); the most-discussed themes among those regrets were romantic inaction ones -- "the one that got away" and never entering a particular relationship -- which is why this side is treated as inaction-dominant. The 44% female rate is used in the regret_rate field as the best-documented direct prevalence; the 19% men's rate illustrates the strong gender difference. A composite rate across both sexes would be approximately 30-32%; the gender skew is noted in caveats.
[2]Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (NIH/PMC) — What We Regret Most ... and Why↗ 13 other entries
Revue par les pairs
Romance ranks #3 among regret domains (14.8%); regrets of inaction persist longer and are more intense over the long term than regrets of action
Extrait
“"regrets of action are more intense in the short term; regrets of inaction are more intense over the long term ... regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action."
”
Données source de
2005-09-01
Consulté le
2026-05-13
Calcul
Roese and Summerville (2005), meta-analysis of nine published articles / 11 data sets. Provides the theoretical framework for why inaction regret in romance dominates over time: unexplored counterfactuals remain open-ended and persistent, while action regrets resolve as the emotional valence of the rejection fades. The paper documents this action-short-term / inaction-long-term pattern as a general regret finding (it does not break the temporal pattern out by domain), with romance ranked third (14.8%) among regret domains overall.
[3]Daniel Pink / World Regret Survey — World Regret Survey↗ 3 other entries
Source de référence
In Daniel Pink's World Regret Survey (26,000+ regrets from 134 countries), inaction regrets outnumber action regrets roughly two to one overall, rising to about three to one by people's 50s; connection and romance are among the most-cited durable regret themes
Extrait
“"the World Regret Survey, which has now gathered more than 26,000 regrets from people in 134 countries." [worldregretsurvey.com homepage] Pink's documented ratio: "Inaction regrets outnumbered action regrets in Pink's survey by two to one." [Psychology Today summary] The ~3:1 figure is age-conditional: "By our 50s, we tend to have about three times as many regrets of inaction versus regrets of action."
”
Données source de
2022-01-01
Consulté le
2026-05-13
Calcul
World Regret Survey (worldregretsurvey.com), reported in Daniel Pink, The Power of Regret (2022). The homepage states the dataset is "more than 26,000 regrets from people in 134 countries" (an earlier survey snapshot of ~16,000 regrets cited 105-109 countries; the 134 figure is current). Pink's documented OVERALL inaction-to- action ratio is approximately two to one, not three to one; the ~3:1 figure is age-conditional -- "by our 50s ... about three times as many regrets of inaction versus regrets of action" -- and the 20s cohort is roughly balanced. This directional inaction-dominant finding corroborates the romance-specific pattern; connection and romance regrets are cited among the most emotionally durable categories, consistent with the Summerville and Roese findings. This is a self-selected internet convenience sample, so the ratios are descriptive of respondents, not a population estimate.
Réserves
Le taux de regret d'inaction (0,44) provient d'une étude de 370 adultes américains qui a mesuré le taux féminin de regret romantique ; le taux masculin dans le même échantillon était de 19%, et un taux mélangé à travers les deux sexes serait d'environ 30-32%. Le taux féminin est utilisé comme chiffre d'en-tête parce que c'est le nombre le plus précisément rapporté et largement cité, mais le vrai taux de regret d'inaction de la population dépend fortement de la composition de genre. Le taux de regret d'action (0,25) est une estimation dérivée, pas un chiffre directement mesuré d'une enquête demandant « regrettez-vous d'avoir avoué ? » ; aucune telle enquête à grande échelle n'a été identifiée. Le chiffre 0,25 est fondé sur la conclusion de Roese et Summerville selon laquelle les regrets d'action en romance s'estompent plus rapidement que les regrets d'inaction et sont plus bas en prévalence sur des horizons temporels moyens à longs. Les deux sources principales ont maintenant plus de 15 ans ; les normes contemporaines de rencontres (y compris le rejet médié par application) peuvent produire des profils de regret différents. L'enquête mondiale sur les regrets (26 000+ répondants) est un échantillon de commodité Internet auto-sélectionné, qui peut surreprésenter les personnes qui ont réfléchi profondément sur le regret. Le regret_delta de -0,19 utilise le taux d'inaction féminin de 44% ; utiliser le taux mélangé de 30-32% réduirait le delta à environ -0,05 à -0,07, ce qui reste dominé par l'inaction mais plus modestement.
