過去關於後悔的研究，大多針對後悔事件的類型進行分析，或探討個體的認知特性，來解釋後悔的發生率以及如何影響正負向的適應結果。但是作者認為這些文獻忽略了個體在後悔情緒中，往往也經歷著一個自我對話的過程：個體會審視著自己所做的行為及這些行為所帶來的後果，或者反省，或者耽溺，或者勉勵，或者責備。在這樣的對話過程中，個體與自己對話著的自我究竟要以什麼樣的態度，又與自己形成怎樣的關連，這種對話的方式應該是影響適應很重要的關鍵因素。本研究嘗試以不同的自我關愛因素來描述前述自我對話的過程，並假設其為後悔與適應之間的中介因素。研究結果顯示，個體在面對後悔事件時，省思之所以能夠帶來良好的適應狀況，是以自我關愛為中介歷程；另一方面，反芻則是透過自我批評使個體困於後悔情緒進而影響生活適應。作者同時也延伸討論自我關愛在個體面對負向事件時自我整合所可能扮演的角色。

Past research on regret mostly discussed the effects of various types of regretted events or investigated individual differences on some cognitive characteristics to explain why regret leads to psychological well-being or illness. The authors argued that the literature on regret ignored the emotional processes in which individuals often undergo a back-and-forth self-talk. An individual examines one’s own behaviors and the consequences of one’s own doings in the forms of reflection, rumination, encouragement, or blame. In such a dialogue, an individual establishes different types of relationship with oneself, which might be a very important key to understand the way in which regret impacts psychological adjustment. In this study, we used two factors of self-compassion to index the processes of self-talk, and hypothesized that different self-compassion factors mediated the relationships between regret and psychological adjustment. The results showed that when facing regret, decent reflections increased self-compassion, which in turn increased well-being; on the other hand, it is through self-judgment which made ruminating individuals trapped in regretful mood and in turn negatively impacted well-being. The authors also discussed the role self-compassion could play when facing negative events and how self-integration is possible.