The Rural–Urban Difference in Interpersonal Regret

Abstract

The present research examined rural–urban differences in interpersonal regret. In Study 1, participants who grew up in rural areas reported stronger interpersonal regret than those who grew up in large cities. In Study 2, we conducted an experiment and found that participants who were assigned to imagine a rural life reported greater interpersonal regret than those who were assigned to imagine an urban life. Moreover, this rural–urban difference was mediated by the degree to which participants wrote about informal social control such as gossip and reputation concerns. Finally, in Study 3, we used the pictorial eye manipulation, which evokes a concern for informal social control, and found that participants from large cities who were exposed to the eyes reported more intense interpersonal regret than those who were not exposed to the eyes. Together, these studies demonstrate that informal social control is a key to understanding rural–urban differences in interpersonal regret.

Keywords

culture rural–urban difference regret socio-ecological approach

Some people prefer rural life: There are fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh air, freedom from noise, and a peaceful environment. Others prefer urban life: There are hip restaurants, convenient transportation systems, freedom from gossipy neighbors, and a stimulating environment. Social and behavioral scientists have investigated rural–urban differences in various phenomena, ranging from religiosity (e.g., Chalfant & Heller, 1991) to mortality (e.g., Woods, 2003). There is a particularly large body of research that showed the rural–urban differences in anti- and pro-social behaviors for decades (e.g., Milgram, 1970; Steblay, 1987). Although there are many studies on rural–urban differences on a variety of topics, we are not aware of any studies examining the rural–urban differences in affective processes such as regret. In addition, few studies have investigated psychological mechanisms underlying rural–urban differences (Oishi, 2014). In the present research, we examined rural–urban differences in personal and interpersonal regret, and tested informal social control as a key psychological mechanism of rural–urban differences.

Informal Social Control in Rural Areas

Since the 1970s, social scientists have demonstrated that people from rural areas are more engaged in pro-social behaviors than people from urban areas. In a famous bystander intervention study, for instance, Darley and Latane (1968) found that participants from rural towns were more likely to help the confederate than those from urban areas. The size of the community in which participants grew up was the only individual difference measure out of 16 that was associated with helping behaviors. With a more systematic experimental design, Gelfand, Hartmann, Walder, and Page (1973) also reported that people who grew up in rural areas were more likely to report shopper’s shoplifting to the staff than people who grew up in urban areas, even though the test was conducted in an urban environment. A meta-analysis (Steblay, 1987) confirmed that the size of the hometown predicts helping behaviors as well as the current living areas.

Sociologists theorize that pro-social behaviors are more common in rural areas than in urban areas because rural areas have superior informal social control, or informal (non-institutionalized) means of regulating residents’ behavior (Janowitz, 1975). In psychological terms, informal social control consists mainly of concern about gossip and one’s reputation (Cohen & Hoshino-Browne, 2005). The development of informal social control in rural areas appears to be residents’ response to their environments. One of the major reasons could be population density. In Science, Milgram (1970) argued that the high density in the urban, especially metropolitan, area could weaken informal social control because it is simply impossible to know and remember other residents. The flood of information burdens people with cognitive overload and only allows superficial forms of involvement with each other, which in turn covers individual identity and enhances anonymity. This could not be the case for a small town: Individuals know and remember each other, from childhood to old age, and from family members to ex-lovers.

Another reason could be deprivation of the institutionalized help (Gelfand et al., 1973). Specifically, institutionalized help, such as police protection, firefighting, and emergency medical treatment, is not available (at least speedily) in the rural areas. Thus, rural residents must call on their neighbors in emergency. If the neighbor refuses to offer help, the “atypical” neighbor becomes the target of gossip and ostracism. Thus, rural residents offer help to their neighbors, and they are also expected to reciprocate. Such practices make rural residents tend to take action to help others. In contrast, this is not the case for urban residents, as many formal, institutional forms of aid are available to urban residents (Sampson, 1986). In an emergency, an ambulance takes a patient to the hospital, and the police safeguards his or her life from crisis.

Thus, in a rural community, interdependence is inevitable; mutual cooperation is a social norm, and its violation will be punished informally via gossip, rumors, social exclusion, and, at the extreme, ostracism. On the contrary, in an urban city, this is not the case; anonymity and institutional aid diminish the influence of neighbors and communal members. In other words, compared with urban residents, rural residents are likely to be more socially constrained by what other residents might think of them (Yamagishi, Hashimoto, Li, & Schug, 2012).

However, there has been surprisingly little research that focuses on the rural–urban difference of emotional experiences such as regret. Because most researchers focused on behavioral choice (e.g., Gelfand et al., 1973; Steblay, 1987; Yamagishi et al., 2012) or health problems (e.g., Verheij, 1996; Woods, 2003) on the basis of sociological concerns, it is still unknown how “deeply” rural–urban environments influence human psychological phenomena. Moreover, the past research did not directly test the mediating role of informal social control on the rural–urban differences. The aim of the present study is to examine whether the rural–urban environment fosters differences of regret, and whether it could be explained by informal social control.

Socio-Ecological Differences of Regret

Regret is a negative emotion that is experienced upon imagining that the present situation would have been better if different decisions had been made (Zeelenberg, 1999). It is typically elicited by a counterfactual comparison between the outcome of a choice and the superior outcomes of previously rejected alternatives (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982; van Dijk & Zeelenberg, 2002). It is known that people feel regret over failure in interpersonal situations, such as hurting friends or annoying family members, as well as personal failure, such as buying on impulse or missing an educational opportunity (Zeelenberg & Breugelmans, 2008; Zeelenberg, van der Pligt, & Manstead, 1998). Given that the rural socio-ecological condition makes rural residents particularly concerned about potential sanctions over social deviances, they might feel more intense regret over their interpersonal failure than urban residents do.

To our knowledge, there is no research that has investigated rural–urban differences in this type of regret. However, recent cross-national research points to the potential rural–urban differences (Hur, Roese, & Namkoong, 2009; Komiya, Miyamoto, Watabe, & Kusumi, 2011; Komiya, Watabe, Miyamoto, & Kusumi, 2013). Komiya et al. (2011), for instance, found that Japanese were more likely than Americans to experience strong regret in interpersonal domains. In addition to the intensity, they also showed that Japanese were more likely than Americans to report regret for hurting or annoying friends and family. Moreover, Hur et al. (2009), a hypothetical scenario experiment, showed that Koreans felt more intense regret over the violation of interpersonal-norm compared with the violation of intrapersonal-norm, whereas this difference was not shown among Americans. Although Japan and Korea are being highly urbanized, it is known that informal social control still powerfully works due in part to their collectivistic cultural tradition, compared with individualistic countries such as the United States (Hashimoto, Li, & Yamagishi, 2011; Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2013). Thus, given the resemblance of the socio-ecological conditions between collectivistic countries and rural environments, previous cross-cultural findings suggest that rural residents feel more intense regret over interpersonal events compared with urban residents.

Note that our hypothesis focuses on the difference in the way of evaluation on a regretful situation, rather than the difference of the regret contents. Indeed, it is possible that there are socio-ecological differences in the contents of regret. For example, rural people might be more likely to harm friends or family members and feel intense regret than urban people, because they live in a place physically close to such people. However, we do not expect that such situational differences mainly foster the rural–urban difference of interpersonal regret. Rather, we expect that different levels of reputation concerns would foster the rural–urban difference. As a consequence, rural people would experience stronger regret than urban people, even when they face the same interpersonal failure. In fact, Hur et al. (2009) and Komiya et al. (2013) presented the same stimulus to Japanese or Korean and American students, and found that Japanese and Koreans were more likely to report strong regret on interpersonal-harm situations compared with personal-harm situations than Americans were.

If this is the case, even people who do not come from rural areas might experience strong interpersonal regret when they are “attuned” to rural environments. That is, in the situation where the concept of rural environments, or fear of gossip or reputation, is heightened, people might report stronger regret for the same interpersonal failure experiences, compared with the situation where people are free from such concerns.

However, as for the personal regret, there are two possibilities. First, there could be no rural–urban differences in personal regret because it is independent of reputation concerns. Past cross-national studies on the intensity of regret, in fact, found no cross-national difference of the intensity of personal regret (Komiya et al., 2011; Komiya et al., 2013). Alternatively, it is possible that rural people are more likely than urban people to care about their reputation even in personal situations (e.g., repercussions of not studying hard). If this is the case, rural people should report more intense personal regret than urban people. In line with this reasoning, Chinese participants reported more action regrets (i.e., what the person actually did, but wish not to have done), which are likely associated with actors’ responsibility, in school domains as well as family domains than Americans (Chen, Chiu, Roese, Tam, & Lau, 2006). This might be because failing in school domains evoked more reputation concerns for Chinese than Americans. These two warring hypotheses suggest that it is worth examining whether there is a rural–urban difference of personal regret or not as well as interpersonal regret.

In sum, we hypothesized that rural residents would be more regretful of interpersonal events (i.e., events involving others) than urban residents are. We also expected that informal social control, or reputation concern, would be one of the keys to fostering such a rural–urban difference. However, we have two warring hypotheses for private personal events (i.e., events only involving the self). First, there would be no rural–urban difference in personal regret because they are relatively independent of social concerns. Or, there would be the same rural–urban difference as the interpersonal regret as it might reflect individual differences of the reputation concern.

The Present Research

We conducted three studies to examine rural–urban differences in regret. In Study 1, we used a survey method to examine whether participants from rural areas would report having more intense regret over interpersonal events than those from urban areas. In Study 2, we used an experimental method to test the causal effect of thinking about growing up in a rural or urban environment on interpersonal versus personal regret. In addition, for Study 2, we explored whether informal social control and/or relationship concerns would explain why participants from rural areas might show more intense interpersonal regret than participants from urban areas. Finally, in Study 3, we directly manipulated informal social control by exposing half of the participants to another person’s eyes, and tested whether social monitoring had a direct effect on the intensity of interpersonal regret.

Study 1

In Study 1, we conducted a survey to examine whether there is a rural–urban difference of regret. We expected that individuals who come from rural areas would experience regret more strongly for interpersonal events (i.e., events involving others) than individuals who come from urban areas would. In addition, we explored whether there is any rural–urban difference in regret for personal events.

We also included temporal perspective (i.e., looking back for an entire life or in a week) as a within-participant factor for an exploratory purpose. Previous studies argued that long-term regrets (i.e., life-regret) are more affected by memory, or justification processes, such as cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) and “silver lining (optimism),” compared with short-term regret (i.e., week-regret; Gilovich & Medvec, 1994, 1995). Given that some studies showed cultural differences in the influence of memory on emotional experiences (e.g., Oishi, 2002) and that rural environments produce behavioral norms that resemble collectivistic cultural tradition (Hashimoto et al., 2011; Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2013), there might be rural–urban differences in the influence of memory on regret. However, Komiya et al. (2011) reported negative results for the interaction, showing that both Americans and Japanese report stronger regret when looking back on their life more than 1 week in the past. Therefore, we did not have any hypotheses related to the differences of hometown effect between the week- versus life-regret.

Method

Participants

Participants were 286 Americans: 97 undergraduates at the University of Virginia (UVa: 43 men and 54 women; M age = 19.28 years, SD = 1.08, range = 18-22 years) and 189 Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk (M-Turk) workers (60 men, 125 women and four did not report; M age = 31.98 years, SD = 11.83, range = 16-65 years). Out of 286 participants, 243 were Caucasian Americans, 13 African Americans, 13 Asians or Asian Americans, seven Hispanics, and nine “other” or unknown. UVa students were recruited from the participant pool and completed this study in exchange for research credits. M-Turk workers completed the same questionnaire online through M-Turk worker pool in exchange for US$0.50. We determined this sample size by anticipating the effect size of the urban–rural difference to be small to medium (i.e., f² = .02-.15) with the statistical power of .80, because past research showed a small/medium effect size for the main effect of culture on regret (Φ = .12-.38, Chen et al., 2006; $η_{p}^{2}$ = .11, Komiya et al., 2011). We stopped the data collection at the end of the semester, yielding n = 97 at UVa. Also, the goal of the data collection was reaching n = 200 for the M-Turk sample. We excluded 11 participants who accessed our survey twice with the same computer or from the outside of the United States, resulting that the total n of M-Turk sample became 189. The pattern of the results did not vary between two samples. To boost statistical power, we combined both samples for the analyses below (n = 286).

Procedure and questionnaire

The procedure was essentially the same as the one used in Komiya et al. (2011). The specific material used in this study is available from Online Appendix A. Participants first read the definitions for interpersonal situations (i.e., those involving others—“hurting friends” is an example of interpersonal regret) and personal situations (i.e., those involving only the self—“not studying enough” is an example of personal regret). They were then asked to review their entire lives (i.e., long term) and the last week (i.e., short term), and briefly describe the event which they most regretted in each of the following categories: personal regret over the lifetime, personal regret over the previous week, interpersonal regret over the lifetime, interpersonal regret over the previous week. Subsequently, participants completed the following sentence for each event: “If only . . . , then . . . ” Next, they rated the extent to which they regretted the events using an 11-point scale ranging from 0 (not at all) to 10 (very much). Finally, participants reported their demographic information, which included gender, age, race, the frequency of moves,¹ and the size of town where they grew up (1 = large city such as New York City and Washington, D.C., 2 = a suburb of a large city, 3 = medium size city such as Charlottesville, 4 = a suburb of a medium size city, and 5 = small town/rural). The order of the regret questionnaires was counterbalanced; we prepared four versions of the questionnaire, varying the order of temporal perspectives and situation types. There were no order effects on the intensity of interpersonal or personal regret. Because 31 participants did not report all four regrets or the size of hometown, only the remaining 255 people’s data were used in the following analyses.

Results and Discussion

The means and standard deviations of regret ratings in each condition are shown in Table 1. As shown in Table 1, the pattern was consistent between life- and week-regret; people who grew up in smaller towns were more likely to report strong interpersonal regret than people who grew up in larger cities, r(253) = .15, p = .017 for life-regret and r(253) = .10, p = .109 for week-regret, whereas there was no correlation between the size of hometown and the intensity of personal regret, r(253) = .01, p = .90 for life-regret and r(253) = .05, p = .47 for week-regret. In fact, life-regret and week-regret are positively correlated in each situation, r(253) = .42, p < .001 for personal regret, and r(253) = .43, p < .001 for interpersonal regret. The relationship between week-regret and the size of hometown can be weak given that week-regret largely depends on what happened in the past week. Overall, both life- and week-regret for interpersonal regret show the same positive relationship with the size of hometown.

Table 1.

Means (SDs) of Interpersonal and Personal Regret in Each Condition.

Time	Situations	Size of hometown
Time	Situations	Large city	Suburb of a large city	Medium size city	Suburb of a medium size city	Small town
Week	Interpersonal	6.03 (2.06)	6.14 (2.43)	7.03 (2.21)	6.87 (1.82)	6.55 (2.36)
	Personal	6.52 (2.34)	6.45 (2.47)	7.36 (2.03)	6.93 (2.45)	6.86 (2.48)
Life	Interpersonal	7.52 (2.25)	7.36 (2.37)	8.24 (2.02)	8.02 (2.21)	8.08 (2.17)
	Personal	8.00 (2.28)	7.72 (1.97)	8.24 (2.09)	8.02 (1.85)	7.89 (2.15)

We next conducted a Hierarchical Linear Modeling analysis using HLM 7 (Scientific Software International, Inc.), regressing the intensity of regret on situations (−1 = personal, 1 = interpersonal; within-participant [Level 1] factor), time (−1 = week, 1 = life; within-participant [Level 1] factor), size of hometown, and their interactions. As expected, the interaction effect between the size of hometown and situations was significant (Table 2). Simple slope tests (Preacher, Curran, & Bauer, 2006) revealed that the size of hometown significantly predicts the intensity of interpersonal regret, b = 0.20, SE = 0.08, 95% confidence interval (CI) = [0.04, 0.36], t(253) = 2.41, p = .017, whereas it was not the case for personal regret, b = 0.04, 95% CI = [−0.12, 0.20], SE = 0.08, t(253) = 0.52, p = .60 (Figure 1).

Table 2.

Hierarchical Linear Models (Study 1).

Variables	b (SE)	95% CI	t	df	p
Situations	−0.08 (0.05)	[−0.19, 0.02]	−1.56	759	.119
Time	0.63 (0.06)	[ 0.52, 0.75]	10.92	759	.000
Hometown	0.12 (0.07)	[−0.02, 0.27]	1.65	253	.100
Time × Situations	0.04 (0.05)	[−0.05, 0.14]	0.91	759	.365
Time × Hometown	0.002 (0.04)	[−0.08, 0.08]	0.06	759	.957
Situations × Hometown	0.08 (0.04)	[0.002, 0.15]	2.02	759	.049
Time × Hometown × Situations	0.04 (0.03)	[−0.03, 0.10]	1.03	759	.302
Adjusted R² = .08

Note. CI = confidence interval. The bold-values indicate significance at a significance level of .05.

Figure 1.

The estimated scores of personal and interpersonal regret by a hierarchical linear modeling.

Next, we explored whether personal regret reflects social concern. Although personal regret is positively correlated to interpersonal regret, r(253) = .42, p < .001 for life-regret, and r(253) = .49, p < .001 for week-regret, it is still unknown that the resemblance is derived from general regret tendency (e.g., Schwartz et al., 2002) or reputation concern (Chen et al., 2006). If personal regret is independent of reputation concern, the hometown effect on interpersonal regret, which is supposed to be fostered by reputation concern, should still remain significant after controlling for personal regret. We conducted a multiple regression analysis, regressing the intensity of interpersonal regret on personal regret, time perspective (contrast coding; −1 = week, 1 = life), and the size of hometown. The results showed that controlling for the intensity of personal regret, the size of hometown significantly predicted the intensity of interpersonal regret, R² = .29, b = 0.18, 95% CI = [0.06, 0.30], SE = 0.06, β = .11, t(506) = 2.87, p = .004, partial r² = .01.

It is possible, however, that the rural–urban difference in interpersonal regret ratings could have been due to differences in the types of regret situations that people wrote about. That is, rural people might have written about offending people close to them more often than urban people did, and that might be a reason why rural people reported more intense regret over an interpersonal event. As noted, our hypothesis is based on the difference of subjective evaluation on a regret situation, rather than on the differences of a regret situation itself. To examine this possibility, we coded the target of interpersonal regret as follows: 1 = family member (i.e., sister, brother, father, mother, and a whole family), 0 = friend (including a boy/girlfriend), −1 = others/not identified. When both family and friends were referred (e.g., “Not telling my friends and family that I appreciate them often enough”), the regret was coded as “family.” First, rural people were as likely to write about close others as urban people were, r(253) = −.05, p = .44 for life-regret and r(253) = .02, p = .70 for week-regret. At the same time, those who wrote about offending close others tended to report more intense regret than those who wrote about offending non-close others, r(253) = .13, p = .035 for life-regret and r(253) = .11, p = .077 for week-regret. Most important, a regression analysis revealed that even after controlling for the target, the size of hometown significantly explained the intensity of interpersonal regret, R² = .30, b = .18, 95% CI = [0.06, 0.30], SE = 0.06, β = .11, t(505) = 2.93, p = .004, partial r² = .01.

Study 1 provided initial support for our hypothesis that rural people report more intense interpersonal regret than urban people. In addition, we showed that the rural–urban differences in intensity of interpersonal regret were not due to different types of interpersonal regret situations. However, there was no rural–urban difference in the intensity of personal regret. This fact suggests that personal regret would be independent of social concerns, and more likely to reflect general regret tendency than interpersonal regret, as shown in the former studies (Komiya et al., 2011; Komiya et al., 2013).

Study 2

In Study 2, we examined the effect of rural–urban differences on interpersonal regret, using a mind-set manipulation similar to the ones used previously (e.g., Oishi et al., 2013; Oishi, Miao, Koo, Kisling, & Ratliff, 2012). Because Study 1 was a correlational study, it is possible that unknown third variables such as socioeconomic status (SES) and religiosity were driving the rural–urban differences we observed. This experimental design will clarify whether rural–urban environments have a causal effect on interpersonal regret.

In addition, even if rural–urban environments did have a causal effect on interpersonal regret, the mechanisms underlying the effect are still unclear. We examined two potential mechanisms. First, as discussed in the introduction, rural environments could lead residents to report more intense interpersonal regret because rural environments are more socially constrained than urban environments. That is, the thought of living in a rural area might evoke social constraints such as the fear of gossip and reputation concern (informal social control, or what Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2013 called “rejection avoidance”). Second, rural environments tend to nurture more tightly knit social networks and cultivate a sense of community and belonging more than urban environments. Thus, the thought of living in a rural area might evoke more relationship concerns (or what Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2013 called “harmony seeking”) than the thought of living in an urban area. Recent factor analytic studies showed that informal social control and relationship concerns are distinct aspects of collectivism (Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2013, 2014). Thus, in Study 2, we tested whether these two potential mechanisms account for rural–urban differences in interpersonal regret.

Method

Participants

One hundred thirty undergraduates at the UVa participated in the experiment in exchange for course credits. We excluded international students (n = 23) from the below analysis to avoid introducing potential noise to the data, because their image of rural–urban lifestyles could be different from that of Americans (e.g., the informal social control is prevalent in the East Asian collectivistic countries even in a large city; Hashimoto et al., 2011; Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2013). Thus, in total, 107 undergraduates (71 Caucasians, 10 Asian Americans, nine African Americans, one Hispanic, two Middle Eastern Americans, and 13 Others; 18 men and 69 women; M age = 18.68 years, SD = 1.47, range = 17-29 years) were included in the analyses below. We determined the sample size estimating d = 0.50 with the statistical power of .80, referring to previous studies which used a similar mind-set manipulation (ds = 0.54-0.86; Oishi et al., 2013; Oishi et al., 2012). Our initial goal was to get at least 100 American participants. Anticipating some non-Americans would be in the sample, we continued our data collection until the total N became 130.

Materials and procedures

Participants were randomly assigned either to the urban or the rural condition. We created the rural–urban manipulation based on Oishi et al.’s (2012; Studies 3 and 5) residential mobility manipulation (see Online Appendix B for the specific manipulation). Specifically, participants were first asked to imagine that they and their family had lived either in a large city (i.e., over million residents within the city limits) or in a small town (i.e., less than 10,000 residents in a town) and that they had grown up in that city/town. They then described what it would be like to have grown up in a large city or a small town in as much detail as possible in 7 min. The mean number of words written was 155.98 (SD = 62.16), ranging from 28 to 362 words.

The participants then completed the regret questionnaire used in Study 1: personal regret over the lifetime, personal regret over the previous week, interpersonal regret over the lifetime, and interpersonal regret over the previous week. The order of these four questions was counterbalanced. Again, there was no order effect. They finally reported a demographic questionnaire including their sex, age, and the size of hometown; there were no significant effects of demographic variables.²

To assess the potential mechanisms, we analyzed the written contents during the rural–urban imagination task. Specifically, using an Excel macro-program, we counted the number of words relevant to informal social control and the words relevant to relationships that participants wrote, respectively (cf. Oishi et al., 2012; Oishi et al., 2013). Informal social control words were five words: “gossip,” “reputation,” “outcast,” ”secret” (all people who mentioned “secret” are in the rural condition, using this word with a negative form like “nothing could be kept a secret,” which were considered as reflecting informal social control), and “everyone/everybody knows, everyone/everybody would know, everyone knowing.” For example, one participant wrote as follows: “You couldn’t do something wrong without everyone knowing. Gossip and rumors would travel fast.” Relationship words were “relations/relationship,” “connect,” “community,” “close,” and “belonging.” One participant wrote as follows: “This gives a sense of community and belonging.” These words were selected through authors’ discussion based on the argument of Hashimoto and Yamagishi (2014)’s Disengaging–Engaging Interdependent Self Scale, which represents concerns for rejection avoidance (e.g., “I find myself feeling anxious if people are watching me”) and harmony seeking (e.g., “I value maintaining harmony with others”).³ Because 18 participants did not fully complete all four types of regret, the final sample size was 89.

Results and Discussion

Intensity of regret

The pertinent means and standard deviations of regret ratings in each condition are shown in Table 3. A 2 (manipulation: urban or rural) × 2 (situation: personal or interpersonal) × 2 (time perspective: life or week) mixed-design ANOVA was conducted. First, not surprisingly, the main effect of time was significant, F(1, 87) = 23.12, p < .001, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .21, showing that participants were more likely to report strong regret when they looked back for their entire life than when they looked back for the past week. Most importantly, as expected, The Rural–Urban Manipulation × The Type of Regret interaction was significant, F(1, 87) = 7.69, p = .007, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .08 (Figure 2). Post hoc analysis (Holm method) revealed that people who imagined that they had grown up in a small town reported stronger interpersonal regret than participants who imagined that they had grown up in a larger city, F(1, 173) = 5.25, p = .023, $η_{p}^{2}$ = .06. However, there were no significant differences between the rural and urban conditions on personal regret, F(1, 173) = 0.01, p = .95. Neither other main or interaction effects were significant, Fs < 2, ps > .16.

Table 3.

Means (SDs) of Interpersonal and Personal Regret in Each Condition.

Term	Situations	Experimental condition
Term	Situations	Urban	Rural
Week	Interpersonal	5.57 (2.61)	6.70 (2.33)
	Personal	6.16 (2.28)	6.43 (1.82)
Life	Interpersonal	7.14 (2.39)	7.80 (1.74)
	Personal	7.29 (2.22)	6.95 (2.62)

Figure 2.

The mean score of personal and interpersonal regret in each condition in Study 2.

As there was no significant interaction effect with time, and the pattern was consistent between life- and week-regret, r(87) = .42, p < .001 for interpersonal regret; we averaged the ratings and used the averaged score for the following analyses.

Why did a thought of rural living enhance the intensity of interpersonal regret?

We next examined whether the effect of the rural versus urban living manipulation on interpersonal regret was mediated by informal social control and/or relationship concern. As expected, participants in the rural condition used more informal social control words (e.g., gossip, reputation) and relationship words (e.g., relationship, community) than those in the urban condition, M_rural = 0.82 (SD = 0.14) and M_urban = 0.02 (SD = 0.14), t(41.33) = 6.71, p < .001, d = 1.21, 95% CI = [0.56, 1.05] for informal social control words, and M_rural = 1.30 (SD = 1.11) and M_urban = 0.37 (SD = 0.64), t(59.09) = 4.71, p < .001, d = 1.06, 95% CI = [0.54, 1.33] for relationship words. These two scores were not significantly correlated, r(38) = .03, p = .84 in the rural condition and r(47) = .15, p = .32 in the urban condition, suggesting that the scores represents two distinct concepts (cf. Hashimoto & Yamagishi, 2013, 2014). Furthermore, the number of informal social control words mentioned was positively correlated with the intensity of interpersonal regret, r(87) = .30, p = .005, whereas the number of relationship words mentioned was not, r(87) = .09, p = .41.

Next, we conducted a mediation analysis to examine whether the effect of the rural–urban manipulation on interpersonal regret was mediated by informal social control or relationship concern, or both. To run the mediation analysis, a free SPSS macro-program for a multiple mediator model (Preacher & Hayes, 2008; http://quantpsy.org/) was used. First, the intensity of interpersonal regret was predicted by the urban–rural manipulation, b = 0.89, 95% CI = [0.10, 1.69], SE = 0.41, t(87) = 2.17, p = .033. When the number of informal social control words and relationship concern words were entered into the model, the effect of the urban/rural manipulation became non-significant, b = 0.33, 95% CI = [−0.76, 1.43], SE = 0.56, t(85) = 0.60, p = .55 (see Figure 3). The analysis of the indirect effects (bootstrap method; 1,000 times) revealed that the number of informal social control mediates the relationship between urban–rural manipulation and the intensity of interpersonal regret, with a point estimate of 0.62 and a 95% bias corrected and accelerated bootstrap CI (BCa 95% CI) of 0.06 to 1.28, whereas this was not the case on the number of relationship related word, with a point estimate of −0.06 and a BCa 95% CI of −0.38 to 0.33.

Figure 3.

The mediation model showing the relation between experimental condition and the intensity of interpersonal regret in Study 2.

In summary, Study 2 showed that exposure to rural/urban living produced the same pattern of the differences shown in Study 1. That is, participants who imagined rural living were more likely to produce strong interpersonal regret than participants who imagined urban living. Most importantly, we demonstrated that the effect of the rural–urban manipulation on interpersonal regret was explained by informal social control. That is, imagining living in a rural environment, compared with imagining living in an urban environment, spontaneously evoked concerns about reputation and being monitored by others, which in turn enhanced the intensity of interpersonal regret.

Study 3

Study 2 suggests that informal social control would be a key to explain the rural–urban difference in interpersonal regret. In the mediation analysis in Study 2, however, we did not manipulate informal social control. When a mediator is not manipulated, there is a third-variable problem. To establish a causal chain, then, it is important to directly manipulate the proposed mediator (Spencer, Zanna, & Fong, 2005).

In Study 3, we directly manipulated informal social control using an eye-like painting in the cover page (see Figure 4). Recent studies showed that this eye-like painting is a cue of informal sanctioning system. For example, presenting an eye-like painting increased both in-group favoritism and cooperative behaviors, which are expected if eyes represent informal social control like reputation concern (e.g., Haley & Fessler, 2005; Mifune, Hashimoto, & Yamagishi, 2010). Moreover, Oda, Niwa, Honma, and Hiraishi (2011) empirically showed that the eye manipulation promotes allocation to others because it is likely to increase the concern for a good reputation and expectation for the return, whereas Keller and Pfattheicher (2011) reported that the level of the empathetic concern (e.g., “I tend to get emotionally involved with a friend’s problems.”) did not depend on the presence of the eyes or not. Of particular relevance, a recent meta-analysis (Ballit, Wu, & De Dreu, 2014) found that in-group favoritism does not occur due to the enhanced social identity (which is more close to belongingness or relationship concern; Tajfel & Turner, 1986), but due to generalized reciprocity (which invites strong reputation concern). Furthermore, we conducted a pilot study, using a lexical decision task, and found that the eye manipulation indeed increased accessibility of informal social control words (see Online Appendix C for the full results).

Figure 4.

The example of the experiment screen in Study 3.

If the informal social control hypothesis is correct, the awareness of informal social control should make even urban people feel stronger interpersonal regret. We did not expect that the heightened awareness of informal social control would change rural people’s interpersonal regret because informal social control is presumably chronically accessible for rural people (see Heine, Takemoto, Moskalenko, Lasaleta, & Henrich, 2008, for the parallel results; the significant effect of the mirror manipulation for Americans but no effect for Japanese).

Method

Participants

One hundred twelve undergraduates at the UVa participated in the experiment in exchange for course credits. Participants who failed to report the size of hometown (n = 4), and international students (n = 5) were excluded in the following analyses. Seventy-one participants described themselves as Caucasians, 11 as Asian, five as African American, two as Hispanic, and 14 as other races/mixed race. Thirty-one were men, and 72 were women. The average age of participants was 19.10 years (SD = 1.50, range = 17-29 years). This sample size was determined based on Study 2. We started the data collection with the goal of n = 120. We stopped the data collection at the end of the semester and, by then, had data from 112 participants.

Procedures

Participants were randomly assigned either to the control or the informal social control condition. After agreeing to participate in the study, participants completed the regret questionnaire used in Studies 1 and 2 with a framework corresponding to each condition (Figure 4). In the informal social control condition, the questionnaire was presented with Horus and the lab’s welcome message, “Welcome to Personality & Well-Being Lab,” whereas in the control condition, it was presented only with the lab’s message. After completing the regret questionnaire, participants reported their demographic information, which includes gender, age, race, the frequency of moves, and the size of town where they grew up, which was the same measure as Study 1 (1 = large city-5 = small town/rural). The order of the regret questionnaires was counterbalanced; there was no order effect. Because 15 participants did not fully complete all four types of regret, the final sample size was 88.

Results and Discussion

To test our hypothesis, we conducted a multiple regression analysis, regressing the score of interpersonal regret on the score of personal regret, time perspective (contrast coding; −1 = week, 1 = life), the experimental condition (contrast coding; −1 = control, 1 = informal social control), the size of hometown, and the interaction term between the experimental condition and the size of hometown. As expected, we found the significant interaction between the experimental condition and the size of hometown, R² = .31, b = −0.64, 95% CI = [−1.11, −0.16], SE = 0.24, β = −.17, t(170) = −2.66, p = .009, partial r² = .03.

The estimated scores of this regression model are shown in Figure 5. The tests of simple slope analysis showed that first, in the control condition, replicating Study 1, individuals who grew up in a small town reported marginally stronger interpersonal regret than individuals who grew up in a large city, b = 0.30, 95% CI = [−0.04, 0.65], SE = 0.18, β = .16, t(170) = 1.71, p = .089, partial r² = .02. Most importantly, the presentation of eyes significantly amplified the interpersonal regret of urban individuals (i.e., the score estimated by using the average score −1SD as the hometown size), b = 0.96, 95% CI = [0.13, 1.78], SE = 0.42, β = .29, t(170) = 2.27, p = .024, partial r² = .08, but this manipulation effect was not significant for rural people (i.e., the score estimated by the average score +1SD as the hometown size), b = −0.63, 95% CI = [−1.45, 0.20], SE = 0.42, β = −.13, t(170) = −1.49, p = .14, partial r² = .02.

Figure 5.

The estimated scores of the multiple regression model in Study 3.

Overall, these results support our hypothesis. As predicted, urban people reported stronger interpersonal regret when they were exposed to the eyes. The heightened sense of informal social control did not change rural people’s interpersonal regret presumably because it is chronically accessible for them. The results from Study 3 provide the most direct evidence that informal social control intensifies interpersonal regret.

General Discussion

We conducted three studies to examine rural–urban differences in interpersonal regret. In Study 1, we found that participants from rural areas reported more intense interpersonal regret than those from urban areas. Study 2 revealed that participants who imagined having grown up in a small town reported stronger interpersonal regret than those who imagined having grown up in a large city. Moreover, this rural–urban difference was mediated by the degree to which participants, while describing what growing up in each type of place would be like, wrote about informal social control such as gossip and reputation. In Study 3, we directly manipulated informal social control via exposure to the pictorial eyes. As predicted, participants from urban areas who were exposed to the eyes reported stronger interpersonal regret than those who were not. Also as predicted, this manipulation did not affect rural people’s interpersonal regret. Together, these results supported our informal social control hypothesis that rural residents are more prone to interpersonal regret than urban residents, and that informal social control in rural environments produced, at least in part, the rural–urban differences in interpersonal regret.

Our primary finding was that rural residents were more likely to report intense regret than urban residents were. As reported in each section, this difference was associated with small to moderate effect size ( $η_{p}^{2}$ = .06 for Study 2, partial r² = .01 in Study 1 and .02 in the Study 3). To evaluate the reliability of the findings, we used G*power 3.2.1 to obtain post hoc power on the basis of effect sizes and sample sizes (Faul, Erdfelder, Buchner, & Lang, 2009). The estimated power was the following: .70 for Study 1, .79 in Study 2, and .55 in Study 3. The weak power of Study 3 might be due to the relatively small sample size for the effect size. Although future studies should address this issue, overall, it may be concluded that the primary finding of this research (i.e., the rural–urban difference of interpersonal regret) is associated with a satisfactory level of reliability.

Previous studies demonstrated rural–urban differences in various phenomena from health problems (e.g., Verheij, 1996; Woods, 2003) to cooperative behaviors (e.g., Gelfand et al., 1973; Milgram, 1970; Steblay, 1987). Because most of the research was conducted based on sociological concerns, they did not examine whether the rural–urban environments could influence affective processes. In contrast, the present research is the first research to demonstrate how regret is different between rural and urban areas. Rural residents were more likely to report intense regret about interpersonal events, such as hurting friends or annoying family members, compared with urban residents. However, there was no significant difference in the level of regret about personal events (e.g., impulse buying, academic failure). The findings suggest that the rural–urban environment could play an important role in fostering specific affective processes, as well as behaviors and cognitive processes.

Moreover, several theorists have speculated that the urban–rural difference is based on the interdependence and informal social control of a rural community (e.g., Boggs, 1971; Gelfand et al., 1973; Yamagishi et al., 2012). However, none of the previous studies explicitly tested the mediating role of informal social control. Like Study 1, sociological research has relied on a correlational method. Because people from rural areas are different from urban areas in a variety of ways, a comparison of rural versus urban people inevitably suffers from the third-variable problem. To our knowledge, the present research is the first to demonstrate the mediating and causal role of informal social control in the rural–urban difference in interpersonal regret.

More generally, our research took the research strategy of socio-ecological psychology (Oishi, 2014; Oishi & Graham, 2010), going from the establishment of the association between a particular social ecology (rural–urban) and a particular psychology (interpersonal regret) in Study 1, to the test of causal and mediating mechanisms in Studies 2 and 3. The current research demonstrates that the socio-ecological framework and the combination of experimental and correlational methods is a promising research strategy in delineating specific psychological adaptation to various local environments.

Although some researchers have investigated cross-national differences in regret (Breugelmans, Zeelenberg, Gilovich, Huang, & Shani, 2014; Chen et al., 2006; Hur et al., 2009; Komiya et al., 2011; Komiya et al., 2013), most research on regret has focused on individual processes, such as its influence on future decisions (e.g., Camille et al., 2004; Roese, 1994) and its relation to cognitive components like responsibility (e.g., Connolly & Zeelenberg, 2002). In contrast, the present findings suggest an influence of socio-ecological environments on regret, which is rarely examined. People experience regret about various things, but the intensity of regret might differ depending on where people are living and growing up. Future studies should examine how environments interactively influence the relations between regret and choice or its cognitive processes.

Notably, previous studies have argued that regret has the functional value of discouraging individuals from repeating the same mistake again (e.g., Camille et al., 2004; Roese, 1994; Zeelenberg, 1999). In the light of the well-known findings that rural residents are more pro-social than urban residents (e.g., Steblay, 1987), our findings suggest that informal social control (e.g., public eyes) gives rise to heightened concern for reputation, which in turn gives rise to interpersonal regret as well as pro-social behavior. It is also possible that interpersonal regret alone might produce more pro-social behavior. It is important to examine these processes using multiple methods in the future.

Moreover, we found no socio-environmental difference of (at least) the intensity of personal regret. In a sense, we replicated the previous findings showing no cross-national difference on its intensity (Komiya et al., 2011; Komiya et al., 2013). More generally, our findings suggest the importance of differentiating interpersonal versus personal regret to examine socio-environmental effects on regret (e.g., Breugelmans et al., 2014; Zeelenberg & Breugelmans, 2008). It should be noted, however, that some studies addressed the issue of the type of regret and produced mixed results (e.g., Chen et al., 2006; Gilovich, Wang, Regan, & Nishina, 2003). In the future, it is important to explore how rural–urban environments influence regret in terms of cognitive processes and contents in personal versus interpersonal domains.

There are several limitations and future directions. First, although the present studies support our hypothesis that the informal social control intensifies interpersonal regret, other factors could also explain the rural–urban difference of interpersonal regret. For example, it is well-known that there is disparity of SES between urban and rural areas. Given the positive relationship between depression tendency and SES (e.g., Lorant et al., 2003), SES might explain the rural–urban difference of interpersonal regret. Similarly, although our studies failed to find empirical evidence suggesting the relationship between residential mobility and interpersonal regret (see Footnote 1), it could be another potential mediator. Future studies should test other possible mechanisms that explain rural–urban differences in interpersonal regret.

Second, the present research measured the size of hometown by self-report. Thus, it is unclear whether the subjective “smallness” of the town or the objective population size drove our results. Particularly, in Study 1, we found the largest difference between a suburb of a large city and a medium-sized city. However, this might be due to an anchoring effect because Charlottesville, where most participants currently live, was listed as an example of the medium-sized city of the scale. Moreover, our data suggest a non-linear effect of the size of hometown. The reason should be explored in the future research.

Third, as almost all participants of the present studies were living in the same city, Charlottesville, we could not examine the influence of the current location. Previous studies suggest that the smallness of the current city, as well as the size of hometown, facilitates pro-social behaviors (e.g., Steblay, 1987). Thus, it is possible that the experience at the new location could repaint a behavioral and psychological tendency acquired through childhood. Indeed, our pilot study showed that the eye manipulation effect on the lexical decision task was particularly strong for adult participants currently living in a large city (see Online Appendix C). It is informative to examine whether hometown or the current location, or both, interactively intensify experiencing interpersonal regret from a developmental perspective.

Fourth, our research was conducted in the United States. It is possible that the image and the reality of rural environments in other nations are quite different from the United States. It is critical to investigate whether our findings could be replicated in other nations. Related to this point, it is worth examining directly whether the previously observed cross-national differences in regret (e.g., Hur et al., 2009; Komiya et al., 2011) can be explained by informal social control.

In conclusion, the present study showed the rural–urban difference of interpersonal regret. The prevalence of informal social control in the rural area makes rural residents wary of social deviation and feel stronger interpersonal regret than urban residents do. Future examinations of this line of research will contribute to the understanding of how environments influence affective processes including regret, and more generally, how environments and individuals construe each other.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Elizabeth A. Gilbert, Jordan Axt, Casey Eggleston, Felicity Miao, Matt Motyl, Naoki Nakazato, Brandon W. Ng, Thomas Talhelm, and Yishan Xu for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Also, the authors thank Hiroshi Shimizu and Masataka Nakayama for his helpful comments on data analyses, and Nobuhiro Mifune for permission to use the stimulus (Study 3).

Authors’ Note

The article was prepared when Asuka Komiya was a JSPS postdoctoral fellow for research abroad and a visiting scholar at Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, in 2013-2014.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Supplemental Material

The online supplemental material is available at .

Notes

References

Ballit

De Dreu

C. K. W.

(2014). Ingroup favoritism in cooperation: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 140, 1556-1581. doi:10.1037/a0037737

Boggs

S. L.

(1971). Formal and informal crime control: An exploratory study of urban, suburban, and rural orientations. The Sociological Quarterly, 12, 319-327. doi:10.1111/j.1533-8525.1971.tb01363.x

Breugelmans

S. M.

Zeelenberg

Gilovich

Huang

W. H.

Shani

(2014). Generality and cultural variation in the experience of regret. Emotion, 14, 1037-1048. doi:10.1037/a0038221

Camille

Coricelli

Sallet

Paradat-Diehl

Duhamhel

Sirigu

(2004). The involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex in experience of regret. Science, 304, 1167-1170. doi:10.1126/science.1094550

Chalfant

H. P.

Heller

P. L.

(1991). Rural/urban versus regional differences in religiosity. Review of Religious Research, 33, 76-86. doi:10.2307/3511262

Chen

Chiu

C. Y.

Roese

N. J.

Tam

K. P.

Lau

I. Y. M.

(2006). Culture and counterfactuals on the importance of life domains. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 37, 75-84. doi:10.1177/0022022105282296

Cohen

Hoshino-Browne

(2005). Insider and outsider perspectives on the self and social world. In Sorrentino

R. M.

Cohen

Olson

J. M.

Zanna

M. P.

(Eds.), Culture and social behavior: The tenth Ontario symposium (pp. 49-76). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Connolly

Zeelenberg

(2002). Regret in decision making. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 212-216. doi:10.1111/1467-8721.00203

Darley

Latane

J. M.

(1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8, 377-383. doi:10.1037/h0025589

10.

Faul

Erdfelder

Buchner

Lang

A. G.

(2009). Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analyses. Behavior Research Methods, 41, 1149-1160. doi:10.3758/BRM.41.4.1149

11.

Festinger

(1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univesity Press.

12.

Gelfand

D. M.

Hartmann

D. P.

Walder

Page

(1973). Who reports shoplifters? A field experimental study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 25, 276-285. doi:10.1037/h0033953

13.

Gilovich

Medvec

V. H.

(1994). The temporal pattern to the experience of regret. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 357-365. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.67.3.357

14.

Gilovich

Medvec

V. H.

(1995). The experience of regret: What, when, and why. Psychological Review, 102, 379-395. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.102.2.379

15.

Gilovich

Wang

R. F.

Regan

Nishina

(2003). Regrets of action and inaction across cultures. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 34, 61-71.

16.

Haley

K. J.

Fessler

D. M. T.

(2005). Nobody’s watching? Subtle cues affect generosity in an anonymous economic game. Evolution & Human Behavior, 26, 245-256. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2005.01.002

17.

Hashimoto

Yamagishi

(2011). Beliefs and preferences in cultural agents and cultural game players. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 14, 140-147. doi:10.1111/j.1467-839X.2010.01337.x

18.

Hashimoto

Yamagishi

(2013). Two faces of interdependence: Harmony seeking and rejection avoidance. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16, 142-151. doi:10.1111/ajsp.12022

19.

Hashimoto

Yamagishi

(2014). Engaging and disengaging aspects of independence and interdependence: An adaptationist perspective (CERSS Working Paper Series). Retrieved from http://lynx.let.hokudai.ac.jp/cerss/en/workingpaper/2014.html

20.

Heine

S. J.

Takemoto

Moskalenko

Lasaleta

Henrich

(2008). Mirrors in the head: Cultural variation in objective self-awareness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 879-887. doi:10.1177/0146167208316921

21.

Hur

Roese

N. J.

Namkoong

(2009). Regrets in the East and West: Role of intrapersonal versus interpersonal norms. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 12, 151-156. doi:10.1111/j.1467-839X.2009.01275.x

22.

Janowitz

(1975). Sociological theory and social control. American Journal of Sociology, 81, 82-108. doi:10.1086/226035

23.

Kahneman

Tversky

(1982). The psychology of preferences. Scientific American, 246, 160-173. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0182-160

24.

Keller

Pfattheicher

(2011). Vigilant self-regulation, cues of being watched and cooperativeness. European Journal of Personality, 25, 363-372. doi:10.1002/per.797

25.

Komiya

Miyamoto

Watabe

Kusumi

(2011). Cultural grounding of regret: Regret in self and interpersonal contexts. Cognition and Emotion, 25, 1125-1130. doi:10.1080/02699931.2010.516962

26.

Komiya

Watabe

Miyamoto

Kusumi

(2013). Cultural differences in the action effect. Social Cognition, 31, 562-577. doi:10.1521/soco.2013.31.5.562

27.

Lorant

Deliege

Eaton

Robert

Philippot

Ansseau

(2003). Socioeconomic inequalities in depression: A meta-analysis. American Journal of Epidemiology, 157, 98-112. doi:10.1093/aje/kwf182

28.

Mifune

Hashimoto

Yamagishi

(2010). Altruism toward in-group members as a reputation mechanism. Evolution & Human Behavior, 31, 109-117. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.09.004

29.

Milgram

(1970). The experience of living in cities. Science, 167, 1461-1468.

30.

Oda

Niwa

Honma

Hiraishi

(2011). An eye-like painting enhances the expectation of a good reputation. Evolution & Human Behavior, 32, 166-171. doi:10.1016/i.evolhumbehav.2010.11.002

31.

Oishi

(2002). The experiencing and remembering of well-being: A cross-cultural analysis. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 1398-1406. doi:10.1177/014616702236871

32.

Oishi

(2010). The psychology of residential mobility: Implications for the self, social relationships, and well-being. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 5-21.

33.

Oishi

Rothman

A. J.

Snyder

Zehm

Hertel

A. W.

. . . Sherman

G. D.

(2007). The Socio-ecological model of pro-community action: The Benefits of residential stability. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 831-844.

34.

Oishi

(2014). Socio-ecological psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 581-609. doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-0304130152156

35.

Oishi

Graham

(2010). Social ecology: Lost and found in psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 356-377. doi:10.1177/1745691610374588

36.

Oishi

Kesebir

Miao

F. F.

Talhelm

Endo

Uchida

. . . Norasakkunkit

(2013). Residential mobility increases motivation to expand social network: But why? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 217-223. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.10.008

37.

Oishi

Miao

F. F.

Koo

Kisling

Ratliff

K. A.

(2012). Residential mobility breeds familiarity seeking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 102, 149-162. doi:10.1037/a0024949

38.

Preacher

K. J.

Curran

P. J.

Bauer

D. J.

(2006). Computational tools for probing interaction effects in multiple linear regression, multilevel modeling, and latent curve analysis. Journal of Educational and Behavioral Statistics, 31, 437-448. doi:10.3102/10769986031004437

39.

Preacher

K. J.

Hayes

A. F.

(2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 879-891. doi:10.3758/BRM.40.3.879

40.

Roese

N. J.

(1994). The functional basis of counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 805-818. doi:10.1177/1088868308316091

41.

Sampson

R. J.

(1986). Crime in cities: The effects of formal and informal social control. Crime and Justice, 8, 271-311. doi:10.1086/449125

42.

Schwartz

Ward

Monterosso

Lyubomirsky

White

Lehman

D. R.

(2002). Maximizing versus satisficing: Happiness is a matter of choice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1178-1197. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.83.5.1178

43.

Spencer

S. J.

Zanna

M. P.

Fong

G. T.

(2005). Establishing a causal chain: Why experiments are often more effective than meditational analyses in examining psychological processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89, 845-851. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.845

44.

Steblay

N. M.

(1987). Helping behavior in rural and urban environments: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 102, 346-356. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.102.3.346

45.

Tajfel

Turner

J. C.

(1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behavior. In Worchel

Austin

L. W.

(Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7-27). Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.

46.

van Dijk

W. W.

Zeelenberg

. (2002). Investigating the appraisal patterns of regret and disappointment. Motivation and Emotion, 26, 321-331. doi:10.1023/A:1022823221146

47.

Verheij

R. A.

(1996). Explaining urban-rural variations in health: A review of interactions between individual and environment. Society for Science of Medicine, 42, 923-935. doi:10.1016/0277-9536(95)00190-5

48.

Woods

(2003). Urban-rural mortality differentials: An unresolved debate. Population and Development Review, 29, 29-46. doi:10.1111/j.1728-4457.2003.00029.x

49.

Yamagishi

Hashimoto

Schug

(2012). Stadtluft Macht Frei (City air brings freedom). Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 43, 38-45. doi:10.1177/0022022111415407

50.

Zeelenberg

(1999). The use of crying over spilled milk: A note on the rationality and functionality of regret. Philosophical Psychology, 12, 325-340. doi:10.1080/095150899105800

51.

Zeelenberg

Breugelmans

S. M.

(2008). The role of interpersonal harm in distinguishing regret from guilt. Emotion, 8, 589-596. doi:10.1037/a0012894

52.

Zeelenberg

van der Pligt

Manstead

A. S. R.

(1998). Undoing regret on Dutch television: Apologizing for interpersonal regrets involving actions or inactions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24, 1113-1119. doi:10.1177/01461672982410008

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.39 MB