men and women often feel a sense of regret after a one-night stand — for very different reasons — but researchers say that lingering sense of remorse does little to prevent a repeat performance in the near future.
the study,
published in the journal of evolutionary psychology
, sought to determine whether sexual regret is functional in a way that leads to behavioural change. the answer, as you may have guessed, is a hard no. “for the most part, people continue with the same sexual behaviour and the same level of regret,”
said leif edward ottesen kennair
, one of the authors of the study and a professor at the norwegian university of science and technology’s (ntnu) department of psychology.
while women are more likely to regret engaging in casual copulation, researchers said men mostly mourn the superficial sex they might have missed out on. “a lot of emotions are functional, like disgust that protects against infection and fear that protects against danger,” kennair said. “an evolutionary approach has helped us understand anxiety by understanding the function of fear: fight-flight-freeze is about avoiding danger and defending ourselves against it.”
to see if regret also prevents history from repeating itself, researchers recruited 529 students at a norwegian university and had them complete two online questionnaires about sexual regret, five months apart, in 2019. with a short interval between the questionable decisions commonly made in pre-pandemic pubs, the team hoped to see evolution in action.