The structure of counterfactual thoughts (evaluations of past outcomes based on 'might have been" alternatives) was investigated. Subjects read stories describing a student preparing for an exam, with the outcome (success vs. failure) and past record of the student (good vs. poor) manipulated. Subjects then 'undid" the outcome by altering (mutating) events that preceded it. Outcome valence significantly predicted the structure of counterfactual alternatives, such that subtractive structures (which delete elements to reconstruct reality) were more likely after success whereas additive structures (which add new elements to reconstruct reality) were more likely after failure. Additive structures were even more predominant when the failure was framed by a history of past failures. No main effect of outcome valence was found on the total number of counterfactual thoughts recorded. These findings point to the utility of differentiating counterfactuals on the basis of structural types.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Davis, C. G. , Lehman, D. R., Thompson, S. C, Cohen-Silver, R., & Wortman, C. B. (l991, June). 'if only it could have been different" The undoing of life events. Paper presented at the annual convention of the Canadian Psychological Association, Calgary.
2.
Dunning, D. , & Parpal, M. (1989). Mental addition and subtraction in counterfactual reasoning: On assessing the impact of actions and life events. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 5-15.
3.
Fazio, R. H. , Sherman, S. J., & Herr, P. M. (1982). The feature-positive effect in the self-perception process: Does not doing matter as much as doing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 404-411.
4.
Fiedler, K. (1988). Emotional mood, cognitive style, and behavior regulation. In K. Fiedler & J. Forgas (Eds.),Affect, cognition, and social behavior (pp. 100-119). Toronto: Hogrefe.
5.
Gavanski, I. , & Wells, G. L. (1989). Counterfactual processing of normal and exceptional events. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 314-325.
6.
Gleicher, E. , Kost, K. A., Baker, S. M., Strathrnan, A. J., Richmnan, S. A., & Sherman, S. J. (1990). The role of counterfactual thinking in judgments of affect. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 16, 284-295.
7.
Herrmann, C. , & Wortman, C. B. (1985). Action control and the coping process. ln J. Kuhl & J. Beckman (Eds.), Action control From cognition to behavior (pp. 151-180). New York: Springer-Verlag.
8.
Jellison, J. M. , & Green, J. (1981). A self-presentation approach to the fundamental attribution error The norm of internality. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 64-649.
9.
Johnson, J. T. (1986). The knowledge of what might have been: Affective and attributional consequences of near outcomes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12, 51-62.
10.
Kahneman, D. , & Miller, D. T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93, 136-153.
11.
Kahneman, D. , & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decisions under risk. Econometrica, 47, 263-291.
12.
Kahneman, D. , & Tversky, A. (1982a). The psychology of preferences. Scientific American, 246(1), 160-173.
13.
Kahneman, D. , & Tversky, A. (1982b). The simulation heuristic. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.),Judgment under uncertainty-: Houristics and biases (pp. 201-208). New York: Cambridge University Press.
14.
Kuhl, J. (1981). Motivational and functional helplessness: The moderating effect of state versus action orientation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 155-170.
15.
Landman, J. (1987). Regret and elation following action and inaction: Affective responses to positive versus negative outcomes. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 13, 524-536.
16.
Langer, E. J. (1975). The illusion of control. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 32, 311-328.
17.
Miller, D. T. , & Gunasegaram, S. (1990). Temporal order and the perceived mutability of events: Implications for blame assignment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1111-1118.
18.
Miller, D. T. , & McFarland, C. (1986). Counterfactual thinking and victim compensation: A test of norm theory. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 12, 513-519.
19.
Miller, D. T. , & Ros, M. (1975). Self-serving biases in the attribution of causality Fact or fiction? Psychological Bulletin, 82, 213-225.
20.
Miller, D. T. , Turnbull, W., & McFarland, C. (1990). Counterfactual thinking and social perception: Thinking about what might have been. In N. M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in rim social psychology (Vol. 23, pp. 305-331). New York: Academic Press.
21.
Olson, J. M. , & Ross, Mt (1985). Attribution research: Past contributions, current trends, and future prospects. In J. H. Harvey & G. Weary (Eds.), Attribution: Basic issues and applications (pp. 283-311). New York:. Academic Press.
22.
Olson, J. M. , & Zanna, M. P. (Eds.). (1990). Self-inference processes: 77e Ontario Symposium (Vol. 6). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
23.
Parducci, A. (1968). The relativism of absolute judgments. Scientific American, 219(6), 84-90.
24.
Pyszczynski, T. A. , & Greenberg J. (1987). Self-regulatory perseveration and the depressive self-focusing style: A self-awareness theory of reactive depression. Psychological Bulletin, 02, 122-138.
25.
Roese, N. J. , & Olson, J. MX. (in press). Self-esteem and counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
26.
Schwarz, N. (1990). Feelings as information: Informational and motivational functions of affective states. In E. T. Higgins & R. M. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 527-561). New York: Guilford.
27.
Taylor, S. E. , & Schneider, S. K. (1989). Coping and the simulation of events. Social Cognition, 7, 174-194.
28.
Weiner, B. (1985). "Spontaneous"causal thinking. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 74-84.
29.
Wells, G. L. , Taylor, B. R., & Turtle, J. W. (1987). The undoing of scenarios.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 421-430.
30.
Wood, J. V. , Saltzberg, J. A., Neale, J. M., Stone, A. A., & Rachmiel, T. B. (1990). Self-focused attention, coping responses, and distressed mood in everyday life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology58, 1027-1036.
31.
Wong, P. T. B. , & Weiner, B. (1981). When people ask "why" questions, and the heuristics of attributional search. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 650-663.
