Primary study
Daniel H. Pink / worldregretsurvey.com
World Regret Survey
Cited in 4 Likelier entries (0 risks, 4 decisions).
Used in 4 entries
For each citing entry, the verbatim excerpt and Likelier's calculation notes (how the source's number was converted to the lifetime-probability framing) are shown below. Click through to read the full claim ledger.
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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.
“[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.”
Calculation notes
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.
Source date: 2021-01-01 · Accessed: 2026-05-13
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Connection regrets — failing to reach out to, stay in touch with, or reconcile with someone — are the single largest regret category in a survey of 26,000+ people from 134 countries (qualitative; no published percentage breakdown)
“[Paraphrase from survey findings — no verbatim online text available. Pink (2022), The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward, reports that connection regrets were the most common category across 26,000+ open-ended responses from 134 countries, exceeding career, educational, and romance regrets. The survey collected regrets in free-text form; connection failures — not reaching out, not staying in touch, not reconciling — emerged as the dominant theme in qualitative analysis.]”
Calculation notes
World Regret Survey, conducted 2020-2021 by Daniel Pink; data published in The Power of Regret (Riverhead Books, 2022). Survey is open-access online at worldregretsurvey.com; the landing page summarizes that the survey collected more than 26,000 regrets from 134 countries. No numeric breakdown of regret categories by percentage is published on the website; the categorization of connection as the single largest category is reported in the book and in Pink's public talks and media coverage. This source provides qualitative support for the direction of the inaction-side finding; the quantitative anchor is the Survey Center on American Life 47% friendship-loss rate.
Source date: 2021-12-01 · Accessed: 2026-05-13
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The World Regret Survey has gathered more than 26,000 regrets from people in 134 countries; connection regrets (the failure to reach out, say what needed to be said, or share important experiences) are the largest of Pink's four core regret categories, and inaction regrets outnumber action regrets by roughly two to one
“"Thank you for visiting the World Regret Survey, which has now gathered more than 26,000 regrets from people in 134 countries."”
Calculation notes
Daniel H. Pink, World Regret Survey, 26,000+ respondents from 134 countries (figures verbatim from the live worldregretsurvey.com landing page, re-verified 2026-07-01). The survey itself publishes no numeric breakdown of regret categories; Pink reports only that connection regrets are the largest of the four core categories (foundation, boldness, moral, connection) and that inaction regrets are roughly twice as prevalent as action regrets overall (Pink, interview, Behavioral Scientist, 2022). The inaction-side rate of 0.18 is a modeled proxy, not a figure reported by this source: there is no direct survey of people who kept a difficult experience private and later regretted staying silent, so the rate is set conservatively below the roughly-half share implied by "inaction regrets about twice as prevalent as action regrets" to reflect that only a subset of connection/silence regrets concern public disclosure of a sensitive personal story. An earlier version of this source claimed "approximately 18% of connection regrets reference not disclosing a personal experience" across "105 countries"; verification (2026-07-01) confirmed the live site reports 134 countries and publishes no such subcategory percentage, so the invented breakdown was removed and the excerpt replaced with verbatim site text. The 0.18 proxy is flagged by proxy_only and hedged in regret_display; see caveats.
Source date: 2021-01-01 · Accessed: 2026-07-01
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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
“"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."”
Calculation notes
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.
Source date: 2022-01-01 · Accessed: 2026-05-13