{"id":22003,"date":"2019-12-18T15:53:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T20:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=22003"},"modified":"2019-12-18T15:53:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T20:53:24","slug":"if-i-knew-then-what-i-know-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/if-i-knew-then-what-i-know-now\/","title":{"rendered":"If I Knew Then What I Know Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Regret<\/a>How many times have you wished you could give your younger self a piece of advice? Clemson psychology professor Robin Kowalski is willing to bet there\u2019s not a single person who hasn\u2019t thought about this at least once in the last year. According to her research, the odds are pretty good that she\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Her latest article in the Journal of Social Psychology,<\/i> \u201cIf I knew then what I know now: Advice to my younger self,\u201d analyzes the results of two studies of more than 400 individuals 30 years of age or older. Kowalski said the results have been truly revealing about the nature of regret, how people can use it to self-actualize and what areas people tend to fixate on in their later years.<\/p>\n

Q<\/span> | <\/span>You shouldn\u2019t dwell on the past, right?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span> |<\/span> \u201cMy findings would suggest otherwise as long as you\u2019re not obsessing about it,\u201d Kowalski said. One-third of the participants in the study spontaneously thought about advice they would offer their younger selves at least once a week.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thinking about the past can help people conceptualize and even realize their \u201cideal self,\u201d which reflects who the person thinks they would like to be. \u201cFollowing the advice helped participants overcome regret,\u201d Kowalski said. \u201cWhen participants followed their advice in the present, they were much more likely to say that their younger selves would be proud of the person they are now.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Q<\/span> | <\/b><\/span>What areas do people tend to focus on when it comes to advice to the younger self?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span> |<\/span> Kowalski said the top three areas are education, self-worth and relationships.<\/p>\n

Advice tied to education often involved individuals urging themselves to return to or finish school, and many participants offered a timeline, such as \u201cget master\u2019s while in your 20s\u201d or \u201cfinish college in four years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Advice related to self-worth, such as \u201cbe yourself\u201d or \u201cthink through all options before making a decision,\u201d tended to be more inspirational and corrective than the more temporal advice about education.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy favorite piece of advice in the whole paper,\u201d Kowalski said, \u201ccame from a guy who said \u2018Do. Not. Marry. Her.\u2019 That\u2019s valuable for the person that he is now because he can reflect and have a better idea of what he\u2019s looking for in an ideal mate, plus he can offer advice to others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q<\/span> | <\/b><\/span>Will this research make it more likely that children will follow their parents\u2019 advice?<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

A<\/span> |<\/span> \u201cNo,\u201d Kowalski laughed, \u201cbut that\u2019s an interesting way of looking at things because I think children between 10 and 30 tend to deny how similar they are to their parents. If they embraced it, they might be more likely to listen to the advice their parents would have given to their younger selves, and the closest thing to that younger self is their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Q<\/span> | <\/b><\/span>What could a young Robin Kowalski learn from today\u2019s Robin Kowalski?<\/b><\/p>\n

A<\/span> |<\/span> \u201cI would do high school totally differently. I was so academically focused, so I think I would tell myself to have a little bit more fun and enjoy high school a little more.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clemson psychology professor Robin Kowalski is willing to bet there\u2019s not a single person who hasn\u2019t thought about this at least once in the last year. According to her research, the odds are pretty good that she\u2019s right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":22004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3351],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-22003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-these-hills","tag-winter-2020-in-these-hills"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2019\/12\/Regret-Illustration.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22003"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=22003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}