Abstract: The content of regrets lies outside the mainstream of regret research for decades due to lack of theoretical summary. It was not until 2005 that Roese and Summerville proposed an opportunity principle to explain the rankings of people’s biggest life regrets. They first developed a 12-category framework of life domains, and then did a meta-analysis of eleven previous regret ranking studies with this framework. The results revealed that Americans’ six biggest regrets fell into the following life domains (in descending order): education, career, romance, parenting, self-improvement, and leisure. Their laboratory evidences further showed that greater perceived opportunity within twelve life domains would evoke more intense regret. On basis of these findings, Roese and Summerville (2005) developed an anti-intuitive opportunity principle, which claimed that opportunity bred regret. However Beike, Markman and Karadogan (2009) showed that feelings of regret were more likely elicited by perceptions of lost opportunity but those of future opportunity. Using the framework of life domains, we did a simple meta-analysis with two Chinese biggest regrets research, including one big-sample survey. The Chinese results showed remarkable agreement with American’s on one hand, that is, Chinese five biggest regrets centered on (in descending order) education, career, self-improvement, romance and parenting. On the other hand, there were some differences between the two countries: 1) regrets in a unique life domain of guangxi in Chinese sample ranked sixth, and 2) there were no regrets in the domains of spirituality and community for the Chinese participants. The finding suggests that besides (lost) opportunity, the importance of life domain would play a vital role in regret as well.

Key words: Opportunity principle, Lost opportunity principle, Importance of life domains

摘要： 后悔内容的研究由于缺乏理论总结长期处于后悔研究的主流之外。Roese和Summerville（2005）通过元分析发现美国人的后悔出现在12个生活领域，在此基础上，他们提出解释后悔内容的机会理论，该理论的核心观点是机会导致了后悔。而Beike、Markman和Karadogan（2009）的观点刚好相反，他们认为失去的机会才会产生后悔。我们将中国人的后悔和美国人的后悔进行比较后，发现中国人后悔出现的生活领域和美国人既有相似性也有差异。该结果提示，除了（失去的）机会之外生活领域的重要性可能也是解释后悔内容的一个重要因素

关键词: 机会理论, 失去机会理论, 生活领域的重要性