The psychology of counterfactual thinking

Historical Social Research

Volumn 34, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 16-26

  Roese, Neal J ^a   Morrison, Mike ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA CHAMPAIGN   (United States)

Author keywords

Causal inference effect; Contrast effect.; Counterfactual thinking

Indexed keywords

EID: 64549114150     PISSN: 01726404     EISSN: 09366784     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (47)

1. Alicke, M. D., Buckingham, J., Zell, E. & Davis, T. (2008). Culpable control and counterfactual reasoning in the psychology of blame. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34, 1371-1381.
2. Barber, B. M., & Odean, T. (2000). Trading is hazardous to your wealth: The common stock investment performance of individual investors, Journal of Finance, 55, 773-806.
3. Berlyne, D. E. (1974). Studies in the new experimental aesthetics: Steps toward an objective psychology of aesthetic appreciation. New York: Taylor and Francis.
4. Byrne, R. M. J. (2005). The rational imagination: How people create alternatives to reality. Cambridge, M.A.: MIT Press.
5. Camille, N., Coricelli, G., Sallet, J., Pradat-Diehl, P., Duhamel, J., & Sirigu, A. (2004). The involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex in the experience of regret. Science, 304, 1167-1170.
6. Carpenter, P. A. (1973). Extracting information from counterfactual clauses. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 12, 512-521.
7. Catellani, P., & Milesi, P. (2001). Counterfactuals and roles: Mock victims' and perpetrators' accounts of judicial cases. European Journal of Social Psychology, 31, 247-264.
8. Chandrasekhar, P. V. S., Capra, C. M., Moore, S., Noussair, C, & Berns, G. S. (2008). Neurobiological regret and rejoice functions for aversive outcomes. Neuroimage, 39, 1472-1484.
9. Davis, C. G., & Lehman, D. R. (1995). Counterfactual thinking and coping with traumatic life events. In N. J. Roese, & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 353-374). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
10. Epstude, K., & Roese, N. J. (2008). The functional theory of counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 12, 168-192.
11. Fillenbaum, S. (1974). Information amplified: Memory for counterfactual conditionals. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 102,44-49.
12. Gilbar, O., & Hevroni, A. (2007). Counterfactuals, coping strategies and psychological distress among breast cancer patients. Anxiety, Stress, & Coping, 20, 382-392.
13. Goodman, N. (1947). The problem of counterfactual conditionals. Journal of Philosophy, 44, 113-128.
14. Fujiwara, J., Tobler, P. N., Taira, M., Iijima, T., & Tsutsui, K.-I. (2008). Personality-dependent dissociation of absolute and relative loss processing in orbitofrontal cortex. European Journal of Neuroscience, 27, 1547-1552.
15. Hofstadter, D. R. (1979). Gödel, Escher, Bach: An eternal golden braid. New York: Vintage Books.
16. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). The simulation heuristic. In D. Kahneman, P. Slovic, & A. Tversky, (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases (pp. 201-208). New York: Cambridge University Press.
17. Kocovski, N. L., Endler, N. S., Rector, N. A., & Flett, G. L. (2005). Ruminative coping and post-event processing in social anxiety. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 42, 971-984.
18. Kringelbach, M. L. (2005). The human orbitofrontal cortex: Linking reward to hedonic experience. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 6, 691-691.
19. Lebow, R. N. (2000). What's so different about a counterfactual? World Politics, 52, 550-585.
20. Macrae, C. N. (1992). A tale of two curries: Counterfactual thinking and accident-related judgments. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 84-87.
21. Macrae, C. N., Milne, A. B., & Griffiths, R. J. (1993). Counterfactual thinking and the perception of criminal behaviour. British Journal of Psychology, 84, 221-226.
22. Markman, K.D., & McMullen, M. N. (2003). A reflection and evaluation model of comparative thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 244-267.
23. Markman K. D., McMullen, M. N., & Elizaga, R. A. (2008). Counterfactual thinking, persistence, and performance: A test of the reflection and evaluation model. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 421-428.
24. Markman, K.D., & Miller, A. K. (2006). Depression, control and counterfactual thinking: Functional for whom? Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 25,210-227.
25. Mill, J. S. (1872). A system of logic, racionative and inductive (8th ed.). London: Longmans, Green, & Reader. (Original work published 1843).
26. Miller, D. T., & Taylor, B. R. (1995). Counterfactual thought, regret, and superstition: How to avoid kicking yourself. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking (pp. 305-331). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
27. Monroe, M. R., Skowronski, J. J., MacDonald, W., & Wood, S. E. (2005). The mildly depressed experience more post-decisional regret than the non-depressed. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24, 665-690.
28. Nasco, S. A., & Marsh, K. L. (1999). Gaining control through counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 556-556.
29. Roese, N. J. (1994). The functional basis of counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 805-818.
30. Roese, N. J. (1997). Counterfactual thinking. Psychological Bulletin, 121, 133-148.
31. Roese, N. J. (1999). Counterfactual thinking and decision making. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 6, 570-578.
32. Roese, N. J. (2005). If Only. New York: Broadway Books.
33. Roese, N. J., Epstude, K., Fessel, F., Morrison, M., Smallman, R., Summerville, A., Galinsky, A., & Segerstrom, S. (in press). Repetitive regret, depression, and anxiety: Findings from a nationally representative survey. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.
34. Roese, N. J., & Hur, T. (1997). Affective determinants in counterfactual thinking. Social Cognition, 15, 274-290.
35. Roese, N. J., Hur, T., & Pennington, G. L. (1999). Counterfactual thinking and regulatory focus: Implications for action versus inaction and sufficiency versus necessity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1109-1120.
36. Roese, N. J., & Maniar, S. D. (1997). Perceptions of purple: Counterfactual and hindsight judgments at Northwestern Wildcats football games. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 1245-1253.
37. Roese, N. J., & Olson, J. M. (1993). Self-esteem and counterfactual thinking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 199-206.
38. Roese, N. J., & Olson, J. M. (1995). Counterfactual thinking: A critical overview. In N. J. Roese & J. M. Olson (Eds.), What might have been: The social psychology of counterfactual thinking. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
39. Roese, N. J., & Olson, J. M. (1997). Counterfactual thinking: The intersection of affect and function. Advances in experimental social psychology, 29, 1-59.
40. Roese, N. J., & Summerville, A. (2005). What we regret most ⋯ and why. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1273-1285.
41. Sherif, M., & Hovland, C. I. (1961). Social judgment: Assimilation and contrast effects in communication and attitude change. Oxford, England: Yale University Press.
42. Spellman, B. A., & Mandel, D. R. (1999). When possibility informs reality: Counterfactual thinking as a cue to causality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 8, 120-123.
43. Summerville, A., & Roese, N. J. (2008). Dare to compare: Fact-based versus simulation-based comparison in daily life. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 664-671.
44. Tetlock, P. E & Belkin, A. (1996). Counterfactual thought experiments in world politics: Logical, methodological, and psychological perspectives. In P. E. Tetlock & A. Belkin (Eds.), Counterfactual thought experiments in world politics (pp. 1-38). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
45. Tetlock, P. E., & Lebow, R. N. (2001). Poking counterfactual holes in covering laws: Cognitive styles and historical reasoning. American Political Science Review, 95, 829-843.
46. Turley, K. J., Sanna, L. J., & Reiter, R. L. (1995). Counterfactual thinking and perceptions of rape. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 17, 285-303.
47. Zeelenberg, M., & Pieters, R. (1999). Comparing service delivery to what might have been: Behavioral responses to regret and disappointment. Journal of Service Research, 2, 86-97.