I’m Better Off Than Most Other People: The Role of Social Comparisons for Coping With Regret in Young Adulthood and Old Age Isabelle Bauer, Carsten Wrosch, and Joelle Jobin Concordia University This longitudinal study was designed to examine the importance of social comparisons for coping with regret among young and older adults. It was expected that making downward social comparisons would be associated with a greater reduction in regret intensity over time among older, compared with young, adults. A total of 104 participants took part in this 4-month longitudinal study. The findings suggest that across different comparison targets, making downward (relative to upward) social comparisons was consistently related to reduced regret intensity over time among older adults. Among young adults, making downward social comparisons with personally known others, as opposed to age peers, was associated with lower regret intensity. In addition, older adults increased their reliance on downward social comparisons over time. This age-differential shift toward downward social comparisons further explained age differences in changes of regret intensity over time. Finally, differences in opportunities to undo regrets explained some of the age differences in the use and adaptive value of downward social comparisons. The implications of the findings for understanding and examining pathways to successful development are discussed. Keywords: regret, social comparisons, aging, self-regulation, life span development Research suggests intense regret can compromise older adults’ quality of life to a greater extent than that of young adults and that older adults may regulate their regret experiences if they engage in self-protective processes (e.g., by not blaming themselves for the regretted event or adjusting regret-specific goals, Wrosch, Bauer, Miller, & Lupien, 2007; Wrosch, Bauer, & Scheier, 2005; Wrosch & Heckhausen, 2002). To further illuminate processes involved in the self-regulation of regret, we examined whether making down- ward social comparisons may represent another mechanism that could serve adaptive functions in the management of regret expe- riences, particularly among older adults. More specifically, we investigated, in an age-comparative and longitudinal study, whether the use of downward (relative to upward) social compar- isons would predict more reduced levels of regret intensity over time among older, as compared with young, adults. In addition, we expected that older (as compared with young) adults would in- creasingly rely on downward social comparisons over time and that this age-differential longitudinal process could further con- tribute to the emergence of age differences in changes of regret intensity over time. Self-Regulation of Life Regrets in Young and Late Adulthood Life regrets are a common psychological phenomenon that people experience across the entire life span (Landman, 1987). As individuals make progress toward achieving important develop- mental tasks (Havighurst, 1967), they often reflect on objectives they have accomplished, those they have abandoned along the way, and whether the goals they have chosen or foregone are consistent with their current values and aspirations (Staudinger, 2001). This process may prompt individuals to reevaluate their choices and behaviors and to think about “what would have happened if” (Kahneman, 1995; Roese, 1997) they had made alternative decisions in major life domains such as work, educa- tion, or family (Roese & Summerville, 2005). Such counterfactual scenarios are usually associated with negative emotions that con- tribute to the experience of intense regret (Gilovich, Medvec, & Kahneman, 1998). Given the emotional correlates of life regrets, it is therefore not surprising that regrets can be associated with broad indicators of quality of life, such as depression and life satisfaction across adulthood. In addition, regret may be especially troublesome as individuals advance in age, as preliminary research has indicated that the number of regrets predicted reduced levels of life satis- faction only among older, in contrast to young, adults (Lecci, Okun, & Karoly, 1994). Subsequent research has documented substantial evidence for such age-differential processes by show- ing the experience of intense regrets to be associated with lower subjective well-being and more health problems particularly among older adults (Wrosch et al., 2005, 2007). In addition, intense regrets were also shown to be associated with cortisol dysregulation among older adults (Wrosch et al., 2007). This stronger association between regret and indicators of quality of life Isabelle Bauer, Carsten Wrosch, and Joelle Jobin, Department of Psy- chology and Centre for Research in Human Development, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Isabelle Bauer is now at Florida State University. The completion of this study was facilitated by a doctoral fellowship awarded to Isabelle Bauer from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Preparation of this article was supported in part by grants and awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Fonds de la Recherche sur la Socie ´te ´ et la Culture, Que ´bec. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Isabelle Bauer, Department of Psychology, Florida State University, 1107 W. Call St., Tallahassee, FL 32306. E-mail: bauer@psy.fsu.edu Psychology and Aging Copyright 2008 by the American Psychological Association 2008, Vol. 23, No. 4, 800 – 811 0882-7974/08/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0014180 800