counterfactual reasoning

n. Counterfactual reasoning consistsofmental constructions of alternatives to facts or events. These thoughts of "what might have been" are associated with a variety of emotional, cognitive, and behavioral consequences.

Explanation. Counterfactual means literally "contrary to facts or actual events." Counterfactual reasoning involves thoughts of "what might have been": how things might have turned out differently, had some aspect of the past been different. Counterfactuals are generally phrased as conditional propositions: IF some event in the past had been different, THEN the present would be altered in some way (e.g., "If I had done better on my SATs, then I might have gotten into a better college"; "If I hadn’t ordered the ceviche, I wouldn,t have gotten food poisoning"). Counterfactual reasoning, in the context of everyday cognition, is generally focused on personal goals and desires, identifying means by which individuals might have attained some desired end (in the examples, through better test performance or different entree selection). For this reason, counterfactual reasoning is highly functional in that it may provide a road map for similar desirable ends which may be realized in the future.

Development and details

Typology. Counterfactual thoughts are commonly classified along two main dimensions: direction and structure. Counterfactual direction refers to whether the imagined outcome is better or worse than the actual state of affairs. Imagined outcomes that are better than reality are termed upward counterfactuals (e.g., "If I had been on time to the interview, I might have gotten that great job"). In contrast, counterfactual outcomes worse than the actual state of affairs are called downward counterfactuals (e.g., "If I had taken the interstate, I would have been caught in that terrible traffic jam"). Counterfactual structure is independent of counterfactual direction and refers to the phrasing of the counterfactual thought. Counterfactuals that add an event or action which did not occur (e.g. someone who did not attend college who thinks, "If I had gone to college") are termed additive counterfactuals; counterfactual thoughts which "undo" an event or action which did occur (e.g., a philandering spouse's thinking, "If only I hadn't cheated") are termed subtractive counterfactuals.

Antecedents and functions. Counterfactual reasoning has been theorized to operate according to a two-stage model. The first stage, counterfactual activation, refers to whether or not a counterfactual thought has been generated. The second stage, counterfactual content, refers to the specific nature of the counterfactual generated, for example, which aspects of reality have been altered or mutated.

A number of antecedents for activation have been identified, the most notable of which is recognition of a problem. When something undesirable occurs, thoughts of how it could have been avoided or of how a better outcome might have been attained spring very naturally to mind. In addition to negative affect, antecedents of counterfactual activation include event abnormality and counterfactual closeness. People tend to generate counterfactuals more frequently after abnormal events than after typical events because abnormal events violate expectancies and thus attract attention (per the old axiom that "Man bites dog" is news, while the converse is not.) Counterfactual closeness refers to the ease with which the counterfactual outcome might have been obtained: missing a flight by 5 minutes is more likely to activate counterfactual reasoning than is missing the flight by 50 minutes, because the counterfactual antecedent is more salient in the former than the latter case.

In general, counterfactual reasoning is a valuable way by which individuals may identify potential future improvements. Negative affect identifies an outcome as problematic; through counterfactual reasoning, a potential path to avoiding this problem in the future is identified. This perspective helps to explain the role of two frequently studied determinants of the content of counterfactual thoughts, normality and controllability. An aspect of a past event which deviates from the usual state of affairs will be easy to alter in the future: for example, a student who usually gets plenty of rest before exams but pulls an all-nighter and then performs badly on an exam the next day would be well advised to return to his or her original sleep schedule. Counterfactual reasoning will thus tend to focus on ways to restore normality after a negative event. Similarly, aspects of events under direct control of an individual suggest a clear pathway by which the individual might alter the outcome of a similar event in the future. A dishwasher who drops and breaks a soapy, wet dish would be less likely to break a dish in the future if he thought, "If only I had worn rubber gloves" or "If only I had dried the dish" than if he thought, "If only porcelain weren't breakable" or "If only there were no gravity." Thus, the content of counterfactual thinking in everyday life tends to center on the controllable aspects of events.

Consequences. Counterfactual reasoning has both affective and cognitive consequences. Counterfactual thoughts have the potential to change the nature of the emotional reaction to an event. Through a contrast effect, upward counterfactuals lead individuals to feel bad about the actual state of affairs, relative to the positive outcome they missed, and downward counterfactuals lead to positive affect about an outcome, given the worse state of affairs imagined in the counterfactual thought. In certain circumstances, however, individuals may experience affective assimilation effects, in which an upward counterfactual leads to positive affect, and a downward counterfactual to negative affect. Such assimilation effects will tend to occur if a counterfactual is generated during the course of an ongoing event; for example, if a team is down by one point at halftime, the thought "If only we'd made that shot at the buzzer, we'd be ahead" is more likely to elicit positive affect (unlike the same thought generated at the end of the game). However, most counterfactual thinking seems to involve negative emotions, and the word regret is used by many researchers to describe dissatisfaction stemming from an upward, self-focused counterfactual thought.

Counterfactual reasoning influences judgment in a variety of ways. For example, the misfortune of a victim may be seen as more poignant to the extent that it was nearly avoided, thus influencing the sort of compensation recommended for the victim. Counterfactual reasoning is closely tied to causal reasoning. Causation implies a relation between two variables in which one produces change in the other. A counterfactual condition nearly always implies a causal relation. That is, by identifying an antecedent-consequent pair that diverges from a factual antecedent-consequent pair, counterfactual bears a strong resemblance toJ. S. Mill's method of difference for determining causation. For instance, the counterfactual statement “If we had watered the plant, it wouldn't have died” implies that the cause of the plant’s death was a lack of water. Behaviorally, counterfactual reasoning is associated with the formation of behavioral intentions. By identifying the cause of a negative outcome, counterfactual reasoning implies a means to avoid that outcome in the future and leads to the formation of behavioral intentions to make the identified changes in behavior.

Conclusion. Counterfactual thinking, "what if" thoughts of alternatives to past events, is a common aspect of daily mental life commonly elicited by negative affect. Counterfactual reasoning has influences on cognitive processes including causal reasoning and social judgment, as well as on emotion and behavioral intentions.

- AS, NR