Welcome to the next installment of Regret Now, my monthly (or so) check in to admit my errors of the past month, reflect further on the topics of my writing, and invite for you to do the same.
You might remember that the last time I did this, I introduced what I’m calling The Regret Project, an homage to Allan Bridge’s Apology Line, the iconic New York City art project that invited strangers to confess their apologies via a good old-fashioned answering machine. Like Bridge’s undertaking, The Regret Project is a space for candid, anonymous reflection—but instead of apologies, it focuses on something just as raw and revealing: regret.
When I came up with the idea for a monthly installment of Regret Now, I was high in the sky on an airplane to Santa Fe, thinking about the regrets I already had about my writing and feeling the need to get them off my chest. As you know, regret is a regular companion of mine, a hazard for someone who is both impulsive but otherwise conscientious. I saw this little feature as a chance for me to self-indulge, a space to air my mistakes and maybe feel a little lighter. A month later it occurred to me that you, my reader, might also be carrying around your own bundle of regrets. Maybe you, too, could use a release. And so, The Regret Project was born. It turns out that all this regret and admission of wrongdoing isn’t merely cathartic, it’s actually good for us. Who knew?
I’ll tell you who knew. Adam Fetterman, who is an Associate Professor of psychology at the University of Houston, knew. In an exchange over social media and email, he shared some of his research with me. It’s fascinating stuff. In his work with colleagues, he found that when people admit when they’re wrong, even in public forums like social media, they are seen as more trustworthy and friendly. More surprising, admitting you messed up makes people think you’re smarter. But the benefits go beyond personal reputation. Wrongness admission fosters healthier dialogues, encourages collective problem-solving, and reduces the polarization that fuels so many arguments. This project, in other words, is doing nothing less than healing the world.
You’re welcome.
As an aside, Fetterman and his colleagues developed a measure called the Willingness to Admit Wrongness (WAW) scale. That’s a fine name, but couldn’t they have called it the Owning Your Shit (OYs) scale instead? Psychologists and our need for decorum, I swear. Here’s one sample item. Answer with how likely you’d admit you’re wrong from 1 (very unlikely) to 5 (very likely):
You are having an argument with a complete stranger (e.g., on a web-based discussion board, in a class, at conference, etc.). Both of you are quite convinced of your own correctness. However, you begin to realize that the stranger is probably right and that your opinion is not standing up to the facts. In this case, would you publicly admit to being wrong?
Since launching The Regret Project, I’ve received submissions that are heartbreaking, funny, and deeply human. Today, I’m sharing two (okay, fine, three) that really stood out. I’ll try to share a few every month, as long as you keep sending me your regrets. As a reminder, you can share your regrets using this anonymous form. We’re changing the world here, people, so please keep your submissions going.
One quick note: Regret Now is normally for paid subscribers only, but I’m leaving this one open to everyone this month so we can share these regrets far and wide. Consider it my public service for January, kids. Please also note that I have and will lightly edit submissions for clarity and brevity.
I’m going to start us off with a regret that broke my heart, from a reader using the handle Too Late.
At the dawn of dating apps, I was in a relationship that was feeling a little sad and unfulfilling, lacked emotional closeness that I wanted. I secretly downloaded an app and looked at a few options, not swiping right on anyone. Noting that everyone shown first was beautiful and interesting (an artifact of the algorithm, for sure), I assumed I could do better and was quicker to dump my boyfriend after a next argument than I should have been. We lived together and he was my childhood crush. I was in my late 20s. After that, I never had kids and haven't found anyone I've loved more. I've regretted it every day for a decade. I feel like a truly crazy person. On one hand, if the relationship was so good, I wouldn't have felt lonely living with a partner, and sad enough to download a dating app to see what I was missing. On the other, I fear that the presentation of the grass being greener kind of ruined my life. Unsure how to ever move past this. How do people cope with things like this?
Oof.
Before I respond, let me just say: I’m probably the last person who should weigh in here. I have no real training to help anyone cope with regret, least of all one as profound as this. I’m a psychologist, sure, but I’m not a therapist. So, take whatever I say with a massive grain of salt.
Thank you for sharing such a deeply personal story, Too Late. I’ve thought about your regret a lot. I wish I had something wise or reassuring to offer. On one hand, I want to tell you not to be so hard on yourself, that you’ll find a partner you love as much or even more one day. Maybe you already have. But on the other hand, when you write about feeling like you ruined your life, I want to cry for you. Who am I to assure you that everything will work out? If having kids was important to you, not having them is a big deal. That pain is real. But I hope you can find a way to forgive yourself. There was something about your relationship back then that made you unhappy. Don’t forget that. Maybe the allure of greener grass played a role, but don’t fall into the trap of airbrushing your past now, idealizing a love that wasn’t meeting your needs. Most of all, be kind to yourself. We all make mistakes; we all mess up. You are not alone.
Our next regret is from a reader who goes by Ballzy.
Many years ago, while driving around Lake Superior with my wife and two pre-teen kids, my kids’ incessant bickering from the back seat became unbearable. Driving on lousy roads was hard enough, but their constant squabbling pushed me to my limit. Repeated pleas to “quit it” had no effect. Suddenly, a great idea popped into my head: leave them by the side of the road. I pulled over onto the shoulder, ordered them out of the car, and feigned desertion by driving away. Of course, I only went about 100 feet before letting them back in. The silence that followed was blissful. Years later, I realized how awful my behavior had been and how much I may have traumatized my kids. I apologized and asked for their forgiveness. Being the wonderful people they are, they forgave me. But I’ll never forget. I’ll carry the regret of treating my precious children this way—children who were just being normal siblings—to my grave. It’s a small wonder they don’t have PTSD!
I feel wildly unqualified to comment on parenting regrets given my own track record of impatient outbursts. Honestly, I should probably be submitting to this project rather than responding to it. As a parent myself, I understand all too well the moments of impatience that come with the chaos of raising children. Some of my own biggest regrets stem from times when I let frustration get the better of me. But, sometimes it feels like you’re wrestling with tiny nihilists who believe in nothing. Nothing. But then they grow up, and what matters is how we show them love and accountability after the storm passes. I hope you can be compassionate with yourself. Parenting is one of the hardest jobs there is, and even the most loving parents slip up. What matters is what you’ve already done: you acknowledged the mistake, sought your children’s forgiveness, and, in doing so, showed them what accountability and humility look like. My advice to you, Ballzy is to forgive yourself. You’ve clearly raised wonderful, forgiving children who love you. That’s proof you’re doing something right.
OK, here’s a regret that I’m sneaking in because it’s short and made me laugh. This is from too_stress.
made my body endure too much stress
Well, too_stress, you really gave us a masterclass in minimalist regret storytelling. No capitalization, no punctuation, no context—just raw, unfiltered honesty. This is the “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” of regrets. Or maybe the haiku of self-care failures. Either way, I respect it. My response: let your body embrace too much rest.
Now onto my own regrets and reflections for the month.
My essay on stereotype threat was a surprise hit. I say surprise because the fragility of stereotype threat is old news to psychologists who’ve been paying attention. When Radiolab was still a relevant podcast, I told a very similar story. And that was way back in 2017. Yes, the recent massive (failed) replication of stereotype threat for women and math just came out, but few people in the psychology world I inhabit were shocked by the findings.
So why all the traffic for this post? While not a household term like implicit bias, stereotype threat is one of those ideas that escaped academia long ago, with many people having at least a vague sense of what it refers to. This broad recognition made stereotype threat both loved and loathed. It was loved by the social justice left, who saw it as evidence for their belief that group differences in ability are more about context than innate ability. For the same reason, it was loathed by the race science right, as it challenged their essentialist views of group differences. So, news of stereotype threat’s apparent demise has sparked both hand-wringing and smug “I told you so” satisfaction—depending, of course, on where one sits on the political spectrum.
Given all the surprise attention it received, I have a few regrets. First, as Moin Syed pointed out in the comment section, just because there’s little evidence that stereotype threat impacts women’s math performance doesn’t mean that stereotypes aren’t threatening. Negative stereotypes about one’s group can undoubtedly feel unnerving or bothersome. I’d bet this is reflected in how people feel when confronted with them. While these feelings might not consistently interfere with performance, they can still be deeply irksome—and that matters too.
Second, I regret casting too wide a net in my skepticism. My doubts are strongest when it comes to stereotype threat’s ability to undermine women’s math performance, but I’m less skeptical of its potential to affect Black people’s academic performance. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not convinced that stereotypes consistently undermine Black test-takers’ performance either. However, because so few studies have examined race-based stereotype threat, we simply don’t have enough evidence to draw firm conclusions. This lack of research is striking given how often stereotype threat is invoked to explain the Black-white test gap. I suspect there are multi-lab studies in the works that will address this gap soon.
Finally, I want to correct a reasoning mistake made by more than a few readers and commenters. Some believed the undoing of stereotype threat is a vindication of biological explanations for racial differences in IQ, popularized by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray. But this simply does not follow. Yes, stereotype threat and biological views compete to explain this difference, but the falsification of one does not validate the other. For example, homeopathy and naturopathy both compete to explain health problems, but refuting homeopathy does nothing to prove naturopathy. Likewise, the refutation of stereotype threat neither elevates nor deflates the ideas proposed in The Bell Curve, much to the dismay of both the far right and the far left.
I want to thank all the readers who participated in my various Big Lebowski contests. Four readers won 3-month subscriptions to this Substack, lucky them: Trembling Mad, Sean Murphy, Guynoir, and Paul B (not that Paul B).
As you probably gathered from my Christmas gift to you all, I’m a real obsessive about the movie. Turns out, some of you are too. One reader—yes, another Gen X man like me—sent me a private note sharing his own Lebowski story. Apparently, he and his family watch the film every New Year’s Eve. I’m biased, of course, but this sounds like a far superior NYE tradition to standing around freezing your tuchus off in Times Square for the privilege of watching a silly ball drop. It obviously beats watching the ball drop on TV too.
OK, those are my regrets—and yours—for the month. But the life of The Regret Project is in your hands. So keep sending in those regrets. Big regrets, small regrets, funny regrets, heartbreaking regrets—send them all my way. And remember that your submissions are completely anonymous; no one will know your identity, including me, when you submit with this handy online form. Think of it as free therapy, minus the couch. Submit yours now and join this grand, experiment. We’re changing the world here, kids.
The point about the failure of stereotype threat to NOT vindicate biological/genetic explanations for racial differences is an excellent one, though I have found that there are delusions out there among the hereditarians that if X racial difference is not explained by situational variable A, IT MUST BE GENETIC! This is delusional because there are a zillion environmental/situational variables out there and any failure does not falsify environmental/situational explanations writ large; it is also delusional because, by itself, it provides no positive evidence confirming X is caused by genes -- which requires causal evidence, which, as far as I can tell, the hereditarians never provide. Instead, they provide, in essence, correlations between some measure of geneticiness (heritability, GWAS, etc) and X. And then they make handwaving arguments, but they rarely, if ever, even try to meet the very stringent standards that do permit inferring cause from correlation, e.g., as beautifully described in Rohrer (2018).
OTOH, Syed's point about "stereotypes being threatening" is a serious moving of the goal posts. Reminds me of this move among some implicit bias advocates: "The existence of biases people are unaware of is well-established." Well, sure, if you are talking about the availability heuristic, but I am pretty sure that was not what "implicit bias" usually refers to.
Similarly, sure let's do some more handwaving about general "threateningness" of stereotypes and everyone move on from the dramatic and pervasive claim that stereotype threat explains (in the original form ALL, in the modified claim SOME) of the Black/White achievement test score gap. Let's move along. I mean who would want to grapple with how badly social psych led so many people astray with the stereotype threat business. And, really, can we remember that words have meaning? Even outside achievement, "threat" is a strong hypothesis. Annoying? Irritating? Sure. Anxiety-arousing? Maybe sometimes. Interpersonally generally not great? Probably. But *threatening*? In general, as in, not just in some highly constructed arcane artificial lab situation of unclear relevance to real life? Show me the data.
P.S. Friendly bet? I say the overall effect in the multi-lab stereotype threat/race replication study comes in at less than r=.1. .1 to .2 let's say its a tie, no winner. Will you take effect>.2? Stakes: Anything from a beer to a bottle of single malt, or, if you prefer, onus to write a Substack essay saying, "I was wrong."