Eight-dimension review score against the
quality rubric
. Each dimension scored 1–5.
D1 Source verification
5/5
D2 Source authority & independence
5/5
D3 Regret-rate accuracy
4/5
D4 Source comparability
2/5
D5 Gilovich pattern
5/5
D6 Prose quality
5/5
D7 Caveat completeness
5/5
D8 Sample quality
5/5
Average4.5/5
Proxy data — no direct regret survey exists for this decision. Rates are derived from satisfaction scores and access-barrier data rather than questions that directly asked about regret. See caveats below.
Action regret
Started smoking as a teenager
72%
72% of adult smokers regret ever starting to smoke
US adults who currently smoke, nationally representative
cross-sectional, retrospective
Inaction regret
Never started smoking
2.0%
~2% of never-smokers regret not having smoked (estimated upper bound; no direct survey exists)
US adults who never smoked (no direct regret survey of this group exists; rate is an estimated upper bound)
no direct retrospective regret measurement available; cross-sectional estimate
% who regret this choice
Started smoking as a teenagerNever started smoking
72%2.0%
action dominates — Action dominates — most regret acting.
Related decisions
Semantically similar decisions — same territory, different trade-offs.
72% of adult smokers regret ever starting to smoke, according to the 2014 Tobacco Products and Risk Perceptions Survey — the most recent nationally representative US measurement. The finding is not an outlier: the International Tobacco Control 4-Country Survey (2002, N>8,000) found 91% of US smokers would not have started if they could do it again, Cancer Research UK’s YouGov survey (2012, N=1,746) found 85% of UK smokers and ex-smokers wished they’d never started, and Gallup (2012) found 88%. The 72% Sanders-Jackson figure is the most conservative because it sampled only current smokers, excludes ex-smokers (who often report even higher regret), and used the most rigorous nationally representative methodology. All four data points converge: regret about starting is the dominant experience of adult smokers.
The inaction side of this decision has no direct survey counterpart. No published study has asked never-smokers whether they regret not having smoked — the construct is essentially absent from the tobacco-regret literature because researchers have no theoretical reason to expect a meaningful response. Nicotine addiction generates regret by trapping users in a habit they wish they had never started; the mechanism requires having started in the first place. Among the roughly 57% of US adults who have never smoked (2022 NHIS), the published literature documents no cohort wishing they had taken up the habit. A 2% upper-bound inaction rate is used here as a conservative placeholder, not a measured figure.
Under Gilovich and Medvec’s temporal regret framework, action regrets tend to fade over time while inaction regrets grow — making most long-horizon regret-pairs favour the inaction side. Smoking inverts this pattern almost uniquely. Nicotine addiction is self-sustaining: the continued physical urge to smoke, combined with repeated failed quit attempts (only 8.8% of US smokers who try to quit succeed in a given year, per CDC 2022), keeps action-side regret elevated and unresolvable for decades. The regret gap here — approximately 70 percentage points — is among the largest observed in bilateral regret research, and is driven not by forgetting but by the impossibility of undoing the addiction that the action created.
Sources: action
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
[1]International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (PMC) — Regretting Ever Starting to Smoke: Results from a 2014 National Survey↗ 1 other entry
Peer-reviewed
71.5% of current smokers (95% CI: 68.6%–74.4%) regretted starting to smoke; an additional 20.7% were unsure
Excerpt
“"The majority of smokers (71.5%) regretted starting to smoke. Being older and non-Hispanic white were significant predictors of regret. Smokers having a high intention to quit, having made quit attempts in the past year, worrying about getting lung cancer, believing smoking every day can be risky for your health, perceiving a risk of being diagnosed with lung cancer during one's lifetime, and considering themselves addicted to cigarettes were significant predictors of regret for smoking initiation."
”
Source data from
2017-04-07
Accessed
2026-05-22
Calculation
Sanders-Jackson et al. (2017), 2014 Tobacco Products and Risk Perceptions Survey (TPRPS), nationally representative web-based survey, N=1,349 current smokers from 5,717 total respondents, weighted for non-institutionalized US adults aged 18+. Primary regret measure: "If you had it to do over again, would you start smoking cigarettes?" — 71.5% answered no (regret). An additional 20.7% said "don't know." This is the most recent nationally representative US peer-reviewed figure and is used as the entry's primary action regret_rate (rounded to 0.72). Cross-country context: Fong et al. (2004) reported 91% regret among US smokers in the ITC 4-country survey (N>8,000, 2002 data); Cancer Research UK / YouGov (2012, N=1,746) found 85% regret among UK smokers and ex-smokers; Gallup (2012, N=166) found 88%. The Sanders-Jackson figure (71.5%) is used as the conservative anchor because it is the most recent peer-reviewed US nationally representative estimate; the higher figures likely reflect broader samples including ex-smokers (who may have even higher regret) or older measurement.
[2]Nicotine and Tobacco Research (Oxford Academic) — The near-universal experience of regret among smokers in four countries: findings from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Survey↗ 1 other entry
Peer-reviewed
About 90% of smokers across Canada, US, UK, and Australia agreed or strongly agreed they would not have started smoking if they could do it again; US-specific rate was 91%
Excerpt
“"The proportion of smokers who agreed or agreed strongly with the statement 'If you had to do it over again, you would not have started smoking' was extremely high — about 90% — and nearly identical across the four countries."
”
Source data from
2004-11-01
Accessed
2026-05-22
Calculation
Fong et al. (2004), International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Survey (ITC-4), baseline wave October–December 2002, random-digit-dialed telephone survey of over 8,000 adult smokers across Canada, US, UK, and Australia. The US-specific regret rate is cited as 91% in subsequent studies (Sanders-Jackson 2017 cites it as "91% regret among United States smokers"). Used here as corroborating multi-country evidence. The higher 91% relative to Sanders-Jackson 71.5% likely reflects different wording ("if you had to do it over again" vs "if you had it to do over again"), older data (2002 vs 2014), and possible sample composition differences. Both are authoritative; the entry uses the Sanders-Jackson 71.5% as the conservative, most-recent estimate.
Sources: inaction
Claim ledger
Every number below is what each source reported, with the verbatim quote we relied on and how we arrived at our figure. Click any link to verify directly.
[1]Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (CDC / MMWR) — Adult Smoking Cessation — United States, 2022
Government report
11.6% of US adults currently smoke; 67.7% of current smokers want to quit; 53.3% attempted to quit in the past year — consistent with zero reported regret about not having started among never-smokers
Excerpt
“"Among adults who currently smoked, 67.7% wanted to quit, 53.3% tried to quit during the preceding year, and 8.8% successfully quit. There have been more former smokers than current smokers since 2002."
”
Source data from
2024-07-25
Accessed
2026-05-22
Calculation
CDC MMWR report, 2022 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS), N=27,651 adults aged 18+. This source is used to establish the inaction-side baseline: among the ~84.4% of US adults who are not current smokers (former + never), the published literature contains no survey asking never-smokers whether they regret not having started smoking. The construct is essentially unmeasured because tobacco researchers have no theoretical reason to expect meaningful regret in never-smokers — nicotine creates its own demand through addiction, meaning regret for not starting is a concept that arises only after addiction is established. The 2% inaction rate is an estimated upper bound based on (a) the absence of any documented survey finding measurable never-smoker regret for not starting, (b) general population surveys showing near-universal awareness of smoking harms, and (c) the theoretical asymmetry: never-smokers cannot experience withdrawal-reinforced regret. See proxy_only annotation in caveats.
[2]International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (PMC) — Regretting Ever Starting to Smoke: Results from a 2014 National Survey↗ 1 other entry
Peer-reviewed
Study sampled only current smokers (N=1,349); never-smokers were not assessed for regret about not starting, reflecting the field's consensus that this construct is not meaningfully present
Excerpt
“"The majority of smokers (71.5%) regretted starting to smoke."
”
Source data from
2017-04-07
Accessed
2026-05-22
Calculation
Sanders-Jackson et al. (2017) sampled only current smokers for regret about initiation. The 2014 TPRPS survey of 5,717 total respondents focused its initiation-regret questions exclusively on active smokers. The decision not to ask never-smokers the symmetrical question ("do you regret never starting?") reflects the research community's understanding that the response distribution would be near-zero and the construct is not clinically or behaviourally meaningful. This asymmetry is documented across all major tobacco-regret surveys including Fong et al. (2004), O'Connor et al. (2010), and Cancer Research UK / YouGov (2012). Used here as methodological grounding for the 2% upper-bound estimate.
Caveats
The two sides use fundamentally asymmetric data. The action side has robust direct-regret survey data from multiple nationally representative studies (71.5%–91% across US and comparable countries). The inaction side has no direct survey: no published study has asked never-smokers whether they regret not starting to smoke. The 2% inaction rate is a theoretical upper bound derived from the absence of documented evidence and the structural logic of nicotine addiction — regret about not starting can only arise after experiencing the product, which creates the addiction that then produces regret upon reflection. This asymmetry makes smoking unusual among regret-pairs: it is one of the few decisions where action regret dominates so strongly that the inaction construct is not meaningfully studied. Gilovich and Medvec's temporal regret framework predicts inaction regret should grow over long time horizons — this entry inverts that pattern because addiction sustains the action-side regret indefinitely rather than allowing it to attenuate. The action_side rate of 72% applies to current smokers; ex-smokers show even higher regret rates in several studies (the Cancer Research UK / YouGov figure of 85% sampled current and ex-smokers combined). The entry uses the Sanders-Jackson 2017 figure (71.5%, current smokers only) as the most conservative and methodologically rigorous US-specific estimate.
