Upward Counterfactual Thinking Research Articles

Counterfactuals, coping strategies and psychological distress among breast cancer patients

The aim of this primary study was to predict the effect of counterfactuals, coping strategies, personal resources (age and education) and stage of the illness on psychological distress in a sample of 64 breast cancer patients. The main findings indicated that upward counterfactuals played an important role in the patients’ psychological distress and coping process with the illness. Patients who used a high level of upward counterfactual thinking were found to have a high level of psychological distress. Downward counterfactual thinking, however, was not found to be related to less psychological distress.

Perceived psychological contract fulfillment and job attitudes among repatriates

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the relationships among repatriates' perceived psychological contract fulfillment, counterfactual thinking, and job attitudes.Design/methodology/approachThe paper sampled 135 repatriates from 16 multinational companies (MNCs) in Taiwan through a survey questionnaire. The paper used hierarchical regression analyses to test its hypotheses.FindingsThe study results showed that repatriates' perceived fulfillment of their psychological contracts was negatively related to turnover intent and positively related to organizational commitment, after controlling for the variables of change assessments. The study also finds a positive relationship between upward counterfactual thinking and turnover intent and between downward counterfactual thinking and organizational commitment. Moreover, repatriates' perceived fulfillment of their psychological contracts was found to be related to upward counterfactual thinking but not downward counterfactual thinking.Practical implicationsA subjective perception of psychological contract fulfillment is a more important predictor of job attitudes than actual changes in position, pay, and skill improvement. Therefore, it is important for MNCs to maintain open communications with their repatriates to ensure clear understanding of the agreement existing between employees and the organization.Originality/valueIn the international human resource literature, it is unclear whether the relationship between expatriates' (or repatriates') perceived fulfillment of their psychological contract with their job attitudes are simply due to their assessments of actual changes in pay, position, and skills. In the case of repatriation, the paper clarifies the phenomenon by distinguishing both repatriates' assessments of changes before and after expatriation and their perceived fulfillment of psychological contracts (and their counterfactual thinking).

The Effects of Temporal Framing on Counterfactual Thinking and Self–Appraisal: An Individual Differences Perspective

The present research examined the impact of temporal framing on two forms of self–reflection: counterfactual thinking and temporal self–appraisal. The possible moderating role of individual difference variables on these processes was also investigated. Participants recalled either a positive or a negative event from their past, which was then temporally framed to seem either psychologically recent or distant. Thinking about a negative event was expected to produce more upward counterfactual thoughts and more derogation of the past self than thinking about a positive event, especially when the event was framed as recent. The results supported these predictions, but individual differences in uncertainty orientation and achievement motivation moderated the findings. Only uncertainty–oriented or failure–threatened participants exhibited heightened generation of upward counterfactual thoughts and greater derogation of the past self following a negative event framed as recent. The findings document the link between counterfactual thinking and temporal self–appraisal and underscore the importance of an individual differences perspective.

Counterfactual thinking and psychological distress following recurrent miscarriage

Developing an understanding of the cognitive factors mediating the emotional response to recurrent miscarriage may help explain how women process and adjust to such an experience. Counterfactual thinking is a cognitive response in which individuals simulate an alternative outcome to an event, and has been found to be related to both positive and negative outcomes following trauma. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between counterfactual thinking, distress, future plans and search for meaning following recurrent miscarriage. Sixty‐two women attending the Recurrent Miscarriage Clinic completed measures of anxiety, depression and thought listing tasks. Findings indicated a positive association between upward counterfactual thoughts and anxiety. Contrary to predictions, there was no relationship between counterfactual thinking and positive outcomes. Future plans were not related to lower distress, but there was some evidence that search for meaning was inversely related to distress. Clinical implications and proposals for future research are discussed.

Counterfactual thinking and regulatory fit

AbstractAccording to regulatory fit theory (Higgins, 2000), when people make decisions with strategies that sustain their regulatory focus orientation, they “feel right” about what they are doing, and this “feeling-right” experience then transfers to subsequent choices, decisions, and evaluations. The present research was designed to link the concept of regulatory fit to functional accounts of counterfactual thinking. In the present study, participants generated counterfactuals about their anagram performance, after which persistence on a second set of anagrams was measured. Under promotion framing (i.e., find 90% or more of all the possible words) upward counterfactual thinking in general elicited larger increases in persistence than did downward counterfactual thinking in general, but under prevention framing (i.e., avoid failing to find 90% or more of all the possible words) upward evaluation (comparing reality to a better reality) elicited larger increases in persistence than did upward reflection (focusing on a better reality), whereas downward reflection (focusing on a worse reality) elicited larger increases in persistence than did downward evaluation (comparing reality to a worse reality). In all, the present findings suggest that the generation of counterfactuals enhances the likelihood that individuals will engage in courses of action that fit with their regulatory focus orientation.

What might not have been: an investigation of the nature of counterfactual thinking in survivors of trauma

Counterfactual thinking (CFT) refers to the process of reflecting on an event and changing aspects of it so as to alter the eventual outcome. Such thinking appears frequent in survivors of trauma (e.g. 'If only I had stayed at home then I wouldn't have had the accident'), but has received little systematic empirical investigation. Four studies examined the nature of CFT in both trauma survivors and non-traumatized controls. Participants generated CFT to their own trauma or to written scenarios. Three key findings emerged. Firstly, trauma survivors overwhelmingly produced CFT that mutated aspects of their own behaviour during the traumatic event (self-referent CFT) and that improved the event's outcome (upward CFT; Studies 1 and 2). Secondly, self-referent CFT style in trauma survivors was generalized to non-autobiographical scenarios and was independent of how much control the protagonist in the scenarios had over the outcome. In contrast, never-traumatized controls tended to generate more self-referent CFT to scenarios where the protagonists had some control than to scenarios where the protagonist had little control (Study 3). Thirdly, this self-referent, upward CFT style of trauma survivors was not related to frequency of post-traumatic stress symptoms (Studies 1 and 3) or Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) caseness (Study 2). These results are interpreted in terms of a self-referent, upward CFT style that is normative following trauma for all survivors, regardless of levels of trauma-related distress, and that is applied to any negative events that are encountered.

Ruminative coping and post-event processing in social anxiety

Cognitive models of social anxiety implicate various factors in the initiation and maintenance of socially anxious states, including anticipatory processing, self-focused attention and post-event processing. The present study focused on post-event processing, which is a post-mortem analysis following a social event that is described as ruminative in nature and serves to maintain social anxiety. Participants ( N=112; 64 women, 48 men) were presented with vignettes that involved making mistakes in public and were instructed to record their thoughts to allow for the examination of the content of post-event processing. Ruminative coping and distraction were assessed via self-report. Results indicated that participants high in social anxiety ( n=55) were more likely to ruminate and less likely to distract when faced with socially anxious stressors compared to those low in social anxiety ( n=57). Further, as hypothesized, participants high in social anxiety recorded more negative thoughts and more upward counterfactual thoughts (‘if only’ type thoughts on how things could have been better; associated with negative affect) compared to those low in social anxiety. These results are discussed in terms of cognitive models of social anxiety.

On Becoming What We Might Have Been: Counterfactual Thinking and Self-efficacy

Three experiments examined the hypothesis that, in the aftermath of a performance event, upward counterfactuals reinforce feelings of self-efficacy toward similar future events, whereas downward counterfactuals decrease feelings of self-efficacy. Using a scenario methodology, the first two experiments confirmed this hypothesis: upward counterfactual thinking enhanced feelings of self-efficacy relative to downward counterfactual thinking. In a third experiment, conducted in a more real-world context, upward counterfactuals again led to greater feelings of self-efficacy than downward counterfactuals. However, there were important limiting conditions: the effect of counterfactual thinking on self-efficacy was more or less pronounced depending on both situational and dispositional factors. Whereas the pattern of results provided little support for a self-protection explanation for these limiting conditions, the results were consistent with a depth of processing explanation.

Counterfactual Thinking, Blame Assignment, and Well-Being in Rape Victims

Blame assignment and well-being among women who had been raped (N = 85) were investigated as a function of counterfactual thinking. The more upward counterfactuals (i.e., ways the rape might have been avoided) victims concurred with where some aspect of the self was mutated, the poorer their well-being. The effect of such upward counterfactual thinking on well-being was mediated by increases in self-blame. The amount of blame assigned to both the rapist and society did not mediate the effect of counterfactual thinking on well-being. These observed effects of counterfactual thinking on blame assignment are consistent with those obtained with uninvolved observers and with victims of other types of trauma. Models testing other possible relationship orderings were not supported. Implications for intervention strategies with rape victims are considered.

Counterfactuals, emotions, and context

Participants recalled either a negative academic or interpersonal experience, and the relations among counterfactual thinking, negative emotions, and attributions of blame and control were examined. Situational context effects on attribution, counterfactual thinking, and emotion were observed, indicating a greater tendency toward self-focused cognition and emotion in the academic context than in the interpersonal context. Consistent with recent theorising, upward counterfactual thinking was associated with negative emotions of guilt, shame, regret, disappointment, and sadness. However, there was no indication that downward counterfactual thinking regulated emotion as previous literature suggests. Implications for functional and process theories of counterfactual thinking are discussed.

The Dissatisfaction of Having Your First Offer Accepted: The Role of Counterfactual Thinking in Negotiations

In this article, the authors explore the role of individuals’ counterfactual thoughts in determining their satisfaction with negotiated outcomes. When negotiators’ first offers are immediately accepted, negotiators are more likely to generate counterfactual thoughts about how they could have done better and therefore are less likely to be satisfied with the agreement than are negotiators whose offers are not accepted immediately. This reduction in satisfaction emerged even when the objective outcomes of negotiators whose first offers were immediately accepted were equal to or better than the outcomes of negotiators whose first offers were not immediately accepted. Evidence for a disconnect between objective outcomes and evaluations emerged in two scenario experiments and a simulated negotiation. The final experiment explored the functional and dysfunctional consequences of counterfactual activation following the immediate acceptance of first offers. Upward counterfactual thoughts were positively related to the amount of preparation for a subsequent negotiation; on the other hand, upward counterfactual thoughts were negatively correlated with the likelihood of making future first offers.

When doing better means feeling worse: The effects of categorical cutoff points on counterfactual thinking and satisfaction.

Counterfactual thoughts of what might have been have been shown to influence emotional responses to outcomes. The present investigation extends this research by proposing a model of how categorical cutoff points, or arbitrary values that impose qualitative boundaries on quantitative outcomes, induce counterfactual thoughts and influence individuals' satisfaction. In particular, just making a cutoff for a category is hypothesized to elicit downward counterfactual comparisons, boosting satisfaction, whereas just missing a cutoff prompts upward counterfactual thoughts, decreasing satisfaction. In some circumstances, this asymmetry can reverse the usual relationship between objective outcome and satisfaction, causing people who do objectively better to feel worse than those they outperform. This hypothesis is supported by the results of 1 naturalistic study and 2 scenario experiments.