Abstract
In four experiments, we explored the inferences people make when they learn that counterfactual thinking has occurred. Experiment 1 (N = 40) showed that knowing that a protagonist had engaged in counterfactual thinking (compared to no counterfactual thinking) resulted in participants inferring that the past event was closer in time to the protagonist, but there was no difference in inferring how close the past event was between knowing that a protagonist made many or a single counterfactual statement(s). Experiment 2 (N = 80) confirmed that participants were not affected by the number of counterfactual statements they read when inferring temporal closeness. Experiment 3 (N = 49) demonstrated that participants who learned that a protagonist had engaged in counterfactual thinking were more likely to infer that the protagonist experienced the controllable event. Experiment 4 (N = 120) indicated that participants who learned that a protagonist had engaged in counterfactual thinking were more likely to infer that the protagonist experienced the exceptional event. We concluded that the existence (but not the number) of counterfactual thoughts can lead people to infer that events were close, exceptional, and controllable, which suggests that the relations between closeness/controllability/exceptionality and counterfactual thinking are bidirectional. These results showed that as well as making inferences based on facts about the real world, people also make inferences about the real world based on hypothetical worlds.
Highlights
Counterfactual thinking is the mental simulation of events that could have occurred in the past but did not (Kahneman and Tversky, 1981; Decety and Ingvar, 1990)
In Experiment 1 we found that the existence of counterfactual thoughts did lead participants to infer temporal closeness, but there was no difference in the pattern of choosing the counterfactual or reality versions of the stories between the many and single conditions
Previous experiments (e.g., Meyers-Levy and Maheswaran, 1992; Roese and Olson, 1996 experiment 3) reported that temporal closeness was more likely to lead participants to engage in counterfactual thinking, rather than temporal closeness resulting in more counterfactual thoughts
Summary
Counterfactual thinking is the mental simulation of events that could have occurred in the past but did not (Kahneman and Tversky, 1981; Decety and Ingvar, 1990). To think counterfactually one must ignore events that have occurred and represent the alternative that might have occurred instead (Roese, 1997). Counterfactual thinking often takes the form of counterfactual conditionals “if. Research has mapped out the events that prompt people to engage in counterfactual thinking (e.g., Meyers-Levy and Maheswaran, 1992) and the function and interpretation of counterfactual thoughts or statements (e.g., Epstude and Roese, 2008). We Inferences From Counterfactuals focus on the latter and explore the inferences people make once they learn that counterfactual thinking has occurred. We explore whether people can make closeness, controllability, and exceptionality inferences when they learn that counterfactual thinking has occurred
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