Stevige persoonlijke grenzen stellen in relaties en op het werk vs meegaan om anderen te plezieren
Als je handelt
Stevige grenzen stellen / nee zeggen
17%
Als je niets doet
Anderen pleasen / geen grenzen stellen
48%
Percentage dat later spijt heeft van elke keuze. De balken en het volledige overzicht staan hieronder.
Levensstijl
Laatst beoordeeld 2026-05-24
Kwaliteit van bewijs 4.38/5
Beoordelingsscore op acht dimensies volgens de
kwaliteitsrubriek
. Elke dimensie krijgt een score van 1 tot 5.
D1 Bronverificatie
5/5
D2 Autoriteit en onafhankelijkheid van bronnen
5/5
D3 Nauwkeurigheid van spijtcijfer
2/5
D4 Vergelijkbaarheid van bronnen
4/5
D5 Gilovich-patroon
5/5
D6 Prozakwaliteit
5/5
D7 Volledigheid van voorbehouden
5/5
D8 Steekproefkwaliteit
4/5
Gemiddelde4.38/5
Proxygegevens — er bestaat geen directe spijtenquête voor deze beslissing. De percentages zijn afgeleid van tevredenheidsscores en toegangsdrempelgegevens in plaats van vragen die direct naar spijt vroegen. Zie opmerkingen hieronder.
Spijt van handelen
Stevige grenzen stellen / nee zeggen
17%
Niet direct gemeten: geen enkele enquête vraagt mensen die daadwerkelijk stevige grenzen stellen of ze daar spijt van hebben. De balk is een plaatsaanduiding ingesteld op een tevredenheidscijfer uit dezelfde enquête — 17% van de zelfbeschreven pleasers zegt dat de eigenschap hun leven makkelijker maakte — wat tevredenheid over people-pleasing meet, NIET spijt over het stellen van grenzen. Het wordt niet omgekeerd tot een actiespijtpercentage; lees deze kant als ongemeten
Amerikaanse volwassenen die zichzelf identificeren als people-pleaser, online panel
retrospectief sentiment, afgenomen in augustus 2024
Spijt van nalaten
Anderen pleasen / geen grenzen stellen
48%
48% van de zelfbeschreven pleasers zegt dat dit hun leven moeilijker heeft gemaakt — een levensgevoelproxy (het aandeel dat de eigenschap een netto blok aan het been noemt), GEEN directe meting van spijt over het niet stellen van grenzen
Amerikaanse volwassenen die zichzelf identificeren als people-pleaser, online panel
retrospectief sentiment, afgenomen in augustus 2024
Approximately 48% of US adults who describe themselves as people-pleasers say being this way has made their life harder, while only 17% say it has made their life easier and 22% report no effect. YouGov’s August 2024 survey of 1,122 US adults established these figures; an earlier YouGov survey from June 2022 (N=1,000) found a comparable 39% reporting “life harder,” with women far more likely than men to report the trait as a net drag (47% versus 26%). The action side — regret among people who actually set firm limits — is not measured in any large representative survey, so there is no direct rate for it. The only same-survey signal is that roughly 17% of people-pleasers say the trait has made their life easier; these are the adults who would plausibly find a wholesale switch to assertive limit-setting harder. That 17% measures satisfaction with the people-pleasing behavior, not regret of boundary-setting, and is surfaced only as a proxy. Givi and Kirk (2023, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology) corroborate the order of magnitude through a different lens: across five experiments with more than 2,000 participants, people who declined social invitations systematically overestimated how angry or rejected the inviter would feel, with actual relational damage substantially below anticipated levels. If the social cost of saying no is chronically overestimated, the post-decision regret of saying no should also run lower than the anticipatory anxiety predicts.
The inaction-dominant pattern in this domain is consistent with Roese and Summerville’s foundational 2005 finding in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin that long-term retrospective regret is dominated by things people did not do rather than things they did. Chronic over-accommodation is a sustained pattern of self-assertion inaction, and the Roese-Summerville framework predicts it will accumulate more long-term regret weight than discrete episodes of firm-limit-setting. The YouGov data tracks this prediction directly: a near-three-to-one ratio of “life harder” to “life easier” among self-identified people-pleasers, replicated across two independent surveys two years apart. The dilemma cuts across romantic, workplace, family, and social contexts — the same person who declines to push back on a partner’s request to skip therapy may also accept overtime they did not want, host family they wished would not visit, and attend social events out of guilt. YouGov does not segment by context, so the headline rates are cross-context averages.
The main caveat is that neither rate is a direct regret measurement. The 48% inaction figure is a “made my life harder” sentiment measure — adjacent to but not identical to retrospective regret. The 17% on the action side is not a regret measurement at all: it is the share of people-pleasers who say the trait made their life easier — a satisfaction measure of the inaction behavior, surfaced as a same-survey reference point rather than inverted into a regret-of-boundary-setting rate. No survey directly measures the regret of having set firm limits. The denominator on both sides is conditional on self-identifying as a people-pleaser, which is roughly half the US adult population. The population-wide inaction-regret rate is closer to 23%, but the conditional rate is the relevant figure because the dilemma only arises for adults whose default behavior is over-accommodation. The directional finding — chronic accommodation is regretted at roughly three times the rate of firm limit-setting — is consistent across two independent YouGov samples and corroborated by peer-reviewed work on invitation declining. The precise magnitudes should be held loosely.
Bronnen: handelen
Bronnenverantwoording
Elk getal hieronder is wat elke bron rapporteerde, met het letterlijke citaat waarop we ons baseerden en hoe we tot ons cijfer kwamen. Klik op een link om rechtstreeks te verifiëren.
1/2 bronnen onafhankelijk woordelijk geverifieerd tegenover de geciteerde bron
[1]YouGov US — Half of self-described people-pleasers think being this way makes life harder
Geverifieerd
Gerenommeerde referentie
Among US adults who self-identify as people-pleasers (48% of the sample), 17% say being this way has made their life easier, 48% say it has made their life harder, and 22% say it has had no effect
Fragment
“"About half (48%) of Americans definitely or probably would describe themselves as people-pleasers. Among them, 17% of self-described people-pleasers say it has made their life easier; 48% say it's made their life harder. 22% say it has had no effect."
”
Brongegevens van
2024-09-04
Geraadpleegd
2026-05-24
Verificatie
Fragment onafhankelijk opnieuw opgehaald en woord voor woord bevestigd tegenover de geciteerde bron tijdens onze onderbouwingsaudit.
Berekening
YouGov US online survey of 1,122 US adults, fielded August 26-30, 2024. The 17% figure is the percentage of self-identified people-pleasers who say the trait has made their life EASIER. It measures satisfaction with the people-pleasing (inaction) behavior; it is NOT a measurement of regret among people who set firm limits. No nationally representative survey measures the regret of people who actually set firm limits, so this side has no direct measure. We do not invert "people-pleasing made my life easier" into "regret of boundary-setting" — those are different constructs measured on a different population. The 17% is shown only as a same-survey satisfaction reference point and the entry is flagged proxy_only. Read the bar as "the action side is not directly measured," not as a measured action-side regret rate.
[2]Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Givi & Kirk, 2023); APA press release — Saying No: The Negative Ramifications From Invitation Declines Are Less Severe Than We Think
Vakgenoten-beoordeeld
Across five experiments with more than 2,000 total participants, prospective decliners overestimated how angry and disappointed inviters would feel; in a pilot 77% of respondents reported accepting unwanted invitations because of those concerns
Fragment
“"Across five experiments with more than 2,000 total participants, the negative ramifications of saying no are much less severe than we expect. In an initial pilot study, more than three-quarters (77%) of respondents reported accepting unwanted invitations because of concerns about declining."
”
Brongegevens van
2023-12-11
Geraadpleegd
2026-05-24
Berekening
Givi & Kirk (2023), Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, published online December 11, 2023 (DOI 10.1037/pspi0000443). APA press release used as the verifiable public URL; the underlying paper is paywalled. Series of five experiments with combined N>2,000 testing the anticipated-versus-actual social cost of declining invitations. Peer-reviewed finding that decliners consistently overestimate the relational damage of saying no. Used as corroborating evidence that the action-side regret rate for firm-limit-setting is plausibly low — if the social cost of declining is consistently milder than feared, the post-decision regret rate should track that pattern. Not a direct regret measurement; supports the order-of-magnitude proxy on the action side.
Bronnen: niet handelen
Bronnenverantwoording
Elk getal hieronder is wat elke bron rapporteerde, met het letterlijke citaat waarop we ons baseerden en hoe we tot ons cijfer kwamen. Klik op een link om rechtstreeks te verifiëren.
2/3 bronnen onafhankelijk woordelijk geverifieerd tegenover de geciteerde bron
[1]YouGov US — Half of self-described people-pleasers think being this way makes life harder
Gerenommeerde referentie
48% of self-identified people-pleasers say being this way has made their life harder; 17% (very often) and 35% (somewhat often) feel they cannot say no to people; 5% (very often) and 20% (somewhat often) agree with people when they actually disagree
Fragment
“"Nearly half (48%) say being a people-pleaser has made their life harder. Among self-identified people-pleasers, 17% very often and 35% somewhat often feel like they can't say 'no' to people. Five percent very often and 20% somewhat often agree with people when they actually disagree."
”
Brongegevens van
2024-09-04
Geraadpleegd
2026-05-24
Berekening
Same YouGov 2024 survey. 48% of self-described people-pleasers (who comprise 48% of US adults overall) say being this way has made their life harder. We use this as the headline inaction-side rate because it is the closest direct survey measure of regret-equivalent sentiment toward chronic over-accommodation. The denominator is conditional: among ALL US adults, the equivalent population-wide rate is roughly 48% (self-ID rate) × 48% (life-harder rate) ≈ 23%. We use the conditional rate as the headline because the regret-pair dilemma is meaningful only for adults whose default is over-accommodation; for adults who do not over-accommodate by default, the decision does not arise. Not a direct regret measure but the tightest available sentiment anchor.
[2]YouGov US — Women are more likely than men to say they're a people-pleaser
Geverifieerd
Gerenommeerde referentie
Among self-identified people-pleasers, 39% say being this way has made their life harder; women are markedly more likely than men to report life-harder (47% vs 26%)
Fragment
“"Among Americans who say they're a people-pleaser (49% of the sample), 39% say being this way has made their life harder. Women who self-identify as people-pleasers (47%) are far more likely than men who self-identify as people-pleasers (26%) to say being a people-pleaser has made their life harder."
”
Brongegevens van
2022-06-23
Geraadpleegd
2026-05-24
Verificatie
Fragment onafhankelijk opnieuw opgehaald en woord voor woord bevestigd tegenover de geciteerde bron tijdens onze onderbouwingsaudit.
Berekening
YouGov US online survey of 1,000 US adults, fielded June 18-21, 2022. Two-year-earlier replication of the headline finding with a comparable rate (39% in 2022 versus 48% in 2024). The 47/26 gender split suggests the regret-equivalent sentiment is heavily gendered, consistent with the broader literature on unmitigated communion (Helgeson) and sociotropy. Used as a cross-time replication anchor for the 2024 headline rate.
[3]Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (Roese & Summerville) — What We Regret Most ... and Why
Geverifieerd
↗ 13 other entries
Vakgenoten-beoordeeld
Regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action, in part because they reflect greater perceived opportunity within affected life domains
Fragment
“"Regrets of inaction persist longer than regrets of action in part because they reflect greater perceived opportunity."
”
Brongegevens van
2005-09-01
Geraadpleegd
2026-05-24
Verificatie
Fragment onafhankelijk opnieuw opgehaald en woord voor woord bevestigd tegenover de geciteerde bron tijdens onze onderbouwingsaudit.
Berekening
Roese & Summerville (2005), Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 31(9), 1273-1285. Foundational meta-analytic finding that inaction regrets dominate long-term retrospective evaluations. Used as theoretical scaffolding: chronic over-accommodation is a sustained pattern of self-assertion inaction, and the Roese-Summerville pattern predicts it will accumulate more long-term regret weight than discrete firm-limit-setting episodes. Not a direct rate measurement; used as cross-literature support for the inaction-dominant pattern of this decision.
Kanttekeningen
Beide percentages zijn proxy's. De 48% aan de inactiekant meet het aandeel van zelfgeïdentificeerde pleasers dat zegt dat de eigenschap hun leven moeilijker heeft gemaakt — een gevoel dat aangrenzend is aan maar niet identiek met retrospectieve spijt over het niet stellen van grenzen. De actiekant heeft helemaal geen directe meting: geen enkele enquête vraagt mensen die daadwerkelijk stevige grenzen stellen of ze daar spijt van hebben. De 17% die op die kant wordt getoond is simpelweg het aandeel pleasers dat zegt dat de eigenschap hun leven makkelijker maakte — een tevredenheidsmeting van het inactiegedrag, bij een andere populatie. Wij keren het niet om tot een percentage van spijt over het stellen van grenzen; het is alleen een referentiepunt uit dezelfde enquête, en daarom is het item gemarkeerd als proxy_only. De noemer is voorwaardelijk op het zich identificeren als pleaser (ruwweg de helft van de Amerikaanse volwassen bevolking); het populatiebrede inactiespijtpercentage ligt dichter bij ~23%. Wij gebruiken het voorwaardelijke percentage omdat het dilemma alleen betekenisvol is voor volwassenen wier standaardgedrag over-accommoderen is. Givi et al. (2023, JPSP) levert peer-reviewed bewijs dat wie afwijst systematisch de sociale kosten van nee zeggen overschat, consistent met een laag actiespijtpercentage, maar is zelf geen spijtmeting. Het beslissingsdomein omvat romantische, werk-, familie- en sociale contexten; de YouGov-gegevens scheiden deze contexten niet, dus de kernpercentages moeten worden gelezen als gemiddelden over contexten in plaats van contextspecifiek. Een werkplekspecifieke versie van dit dilemma wordt apart behandeld door het item speaking-up-vs-staying-silent.
