‘Missing the memories you could have made that night!’ – how does viewing social drinking scenarios affect young adults’ feelings of regret?

Missing out on social gains from drinking alcohol is linked to the Fear of Missing Out (FoMO), a form of regret. This study tested if viewing vignettes highlighting missed opportunities to achieve social gains induced FoMO, if vignettes portraying alcohol contexts elicited higher FoMO scores, and if FoMO scores were higher than other types of regret. One hundred and forty-seven young adults (aged 18–24, 78% female) were recruited. A mixed-measures design was used, with participants randomly allocated to view vignettes depicting events representing three experience types (comparable, novel, social) in one of three contexts (alcohol, control, non-alcohol) before providing ratings of three negative emotions (FoMO, regret, anticipated regret). Main effects of context and experience were found: FoMO scores were significantly higher (1) in alcohol versus other contexts and (2) for social compared to other experiences. A significant three-way interaction, between context, experience, and emotion was also found; FoMO scores were highest after viewing the social experience-alcohol context vignette. Results show FoMO can be induced by viewing vignettes, especially those depicting social experiences in alcohol contexts. Thus, the perception of missing out on social gains associated with drinking alcohol may heighten the sense of FoMO. FoMO may be amenable for alcohol interventions targeting young adult social drinkers.