I think the underlying question is to see if regret (or other difficulties like financial hardship or things that require a state actor to intervene) are correl

I think the underlying question is to see if regret (or other difficulties like financial hardship or things that require a state actor to intervene) are correlated with planning and consideration. Measuring that is the difficulty. And as that article state - that "less than 10%" number is coming from a population where it is taboo to admit to regret. People have been shown to be economical with the truth on otherwise anonymous surveys - [0] is a humorous example, so how much that may skew the results would likely need to be looked in to. And that's just the responders who know they're replying inaccurately - with such cultural pressure, they may not admit to themselves - there's lots of examples where people deceive themselves about how they feel about things that may go against society's grain at their time. Introspection is really hard. So I'd see that number as a lower bound, not necessarily accurate. EDIT: Additionally the cost - 7% of artists not reaching their ambitions is sad, but 7% of children being unloved and resented is a tragedy. [0] https://www.iflscience.com/men-cant-be-trusted-to-measure-their-own-penis-size-study-finds-68278 https://www.iflscience.com/men-cant-be-trusted-to-measure-th...