Effects Of Counterfactual Thinking

750 Words2 Pages

The thought process of counterfactual thinking
Maya German
Middle Georgia State University

Abstract Counterfactual thinking is thoughts of an event of the past that could have had a better outcome and didn’t happen. This type of thinking helps people escape negative outcomes. It also helps us improve in our actions by making better choices. Counterfactual thoughts are “what if” and “what might have been” that happen in our thought process after negative moments. An experiment has been conducted to test the effects of counterfactual thinking.

Introduction

Everyday humans experience a “what if” situation. Whether it’s eating breakfast, waking up early for school, or even studying for class. According …show more content…

To explain this, as we learn from our “what if” moments we make better decisions for the future. For example, a student may question themselves what if I had studied two weeks before the test, maybe I would have passed. Counterfactual thoughts are emotional based situations, where people think about what could have been done differently in a situation whether they are happy, sad, or nervous. Counterfactual thinking requires the human mind to create alternatives to moments in life that have already happened. Our thoughts are counter to the fact, which often leads us into questioning our own actions to try to make previous situations better for future occurrences. (BOOK) According to _____, Our attributions influence our emotional reactions to events and therefore our counterfactual thoughts do as well. If we know better, we will do better. For example, If Andrea failed her big exam because she decided to go out the weekend before the test and got arrested for drunk driving, Andrea wouldn’t have much time to study because she spent the night in jail. She then may come up with counterfactual scenarios (e.g., if only I had called an Uber to drive me …show more content…

Normal events group (M=32.7, SD=12.36), p<.05). Student that cheated F (1,72) = 4.35, p=.098.

Discussion
The purpose of this study was to compare whether a positive or negative outcome would get more counterfactual thoughts. We hypothesized that participants would come up with more counterfactual thoughts to a negative outcome (Good student that studied, but failed the exam). There was no correlation found in the variables, but the number of counterfactuals was the dependent variable. The good student vs. bad student were the two confounds in the experiment. A confound is anything that is systematically different between conditions other than one thing that should be changed at a time (basically changing two things at a time).
All the main effects were not significant even with limitations. So overall there was no effect whether the student was described as a good or bad student in terms of average number of counterfactuals listed across different conditions listed. They were statistically similar but not reliably

Show More
Related

  • Critical Analysis on Edwidge Danticat’s A Wall of Fire Rising

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    Higgins, Tory. “Self-Discrepancy Theory: What Patterns of Self-Beliefs Cause People to Suffer?”(1989). Advances in Experimental Social psychology, Vol.22 (1989):93-136. Academic Press Inc.

    Read More

  • Learning And Evolving From Life's Experience In The Iron Road By Al Purdy

    1266 Words  | 3 Pages

    The balance between fear and foresight is a necessary component for an individual to maintain a healthy lifestyle, an imbalance of these components can potentially put people in difficult situations as it relates to their survival. Fear can be a humbling experience when it is not balanced with foresight, the nuances of that particular experience instills a subconscious thought in an individual that resonates with fear, in terms of people realizing their mistakes and making the necessary adjustments in life.

    Read More

  • Why Is Gun Violence Important

    568 Words  | 2 Pages

    We make choices every day, from waking to sleeping our day is composed of choices and the results of these choices. These choices help to shape us to who we are and want to be. But, these results may not be foreseen and may be adverse or favorable depending on the situation. Topics and events in our history ranging from the literacy of common man to unnecessary gun violence were a result of un-foreseen consequences. Our world’s history has been shaped by these consequences forming the world to where we are today.

    Read More

  • Quasi-experimental Design

    2375 Words  | 5 Pages

    If a study is confounded, the researcher is not absolutely certain that changes in the dependent variable were caused by the manipulation of the independent variable, or some other uncontrolled variable. In a non-equivalent control group post-test only design, any differences observed between the two classes may be due to the non-equivalence of the groups and not to the injection of quizzes. No pre-test measures were given to establish equivalence.

    Read More

  • Time Orientation Theory: Philip Zmibardo's Time Orientation Theory

    1440 Words  | 3 Pages

    Even though I can be negative at times, I do have some situations where I think about my future. For example when I decided to leave to independent studies because I was always late, I was having problems at school and at home and it was very hard for me to focus on school. I thought if I left from regular school it could help me become more responsible and it could help me figure out what I wanted to major in. It was in independent studies that I found out that I really wanted to pursue a career in health. Another example where I thought about the future was when I took the CNA class; that is, I took the Certified Nursing Assistant course. At the end of my junior year I decided that I wanted to take the class because I could have better opportunities after high school and in my future career. The instructor Ms. Estrada had a meeting to see how many people were interested; in addition, she gave the class requirements. She said class was from 1:19 to 4:30, we had at least one test every week, and if you fail more than 3 tests you get dropped. At the end of the meeting she gave everyone a packet with medical terms that she wanted us to memorize. On the very first day she was going to test us; moreover, if we failed it we would get dropped. I was chosen to be in the class and it was the longest, most stressful year ever. I was ready to

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Free Will

    708 Words  | 2 Pages

    People influenced to accept a determinist viewpoint over a free will viewpoint cheated more often than both the control groups and pro-free will groups (Vohs 50, 52). The two studies tested both inactive and active cheating by permitting participants to see answers prior to them answering the questions if they did nothing or to reward themselves with money for their score on the test regardless of whether or not they deserved the amount they took (Vohs 50, 52). In both, those who read a deterministic passage versus a neutral or free will passage took advantage of others more when given the opportunity (Vohs 50, 52). Additional research demonstrated that people influenced by deterministic beliefs felt less or no guilt for their actions when reflecting on past personal events or learning of a death their actions indirectly caused, and noted that they would not change their actions (Stillman 954, 958). In other words, the determinism group exhibited less learning from their mistakes than the control group which claimed they would act differently in the future (Stillman 954, 958). Rigoni and Brass conducted a study looking at

    Read More

  • Self-fulfilling Prophecy

    1640 Words  | 4 Pages

    The first topic of discussion is the self-imposed, or self-inflicted, self-fulfilling prophecy. This idea follows that if one has a preconception or notion of an outcome, then chances are that person will raise the possibility of making it so. Take for example these cases-in-hand that Channing Grigsby, teacher of self-esteem speaks of:

    Read More

  • Counterfactual Thinking: Impact on Male and Female Reactions

    1722 Words  | 4 Pages

    Four hundred twenty-five participants were recruited to participate in an online survey to determine the effects of counterfactual thinking. In order to test its impact, we conducted a study to see if the participant responses would change depending on what type of scenario we provided them with. In this study the participants’ where given one of two versions of a story in which a couple ends up dead. a taxi driver was rude to a couple and the other in which he was not. The results from these studies showed that male participants reported more blame than female participants. However, there was a significant main effect in rudeness between both conditions (driver rude and the neutral). We also found that male participants reported less “if

    Read More

  • Unrealistic Optimism Essay

    2004 Words  | 5 Pages

    “The optimism bias stands guard. It’s in charge of keeping our minds at ease and our bodies healthy. It moves us forward, rather than to the nearest high-rise rooftop.”– Sharot. In this quotation, Sharot shares her belief that we have a tendency to overestimate positive events that will happen in our life, this is the optimism bias; and this tendency keeps us living. It is also a long-term effect and not a short term one. Researchers have long discussed the question of why we still have an unrealistic optimism even though reality throws events at us that could change our view and believes. They have found that indeed, people tend to be optimistic about themselves, they also accept an information that has positive implication for them more easily that one that has negative implication for them. But do we have evidence that people have an unrealistically optimistic view of themselves; in other words, do they never predict that something negative will

    Read More

  • Hindsight Bias Research Paper

    333 Words  | 1 Pages

    Hindsight Bias- Thinking a solution from the past can also be used for the future.

    Read More

  • Confirmation Bias And Backfire Effect

    485 Words  | 1 Pages

    Backfire effects are a phenomenon that explains the way that people will automatically dismiss any information that goes against their worldview. When information challenges people in their views, they will often accept misinformation that confirms their beliefs before they accept facts that oppose them. This phenomenon is closely related to the idea of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is a form of motivated cognition because it demonstrates how we only remember information when it confirms opinions that we already have. Both concepts, confirmation bias and backfire effects, explain how the mind is not easily influenced by facts due to the way people hold their strong opinions.

    Read More

  • What Is Time Travel Essay

    2555 Words  | 6 Pages

    The hindsight bias, as defined in the article Hindsight Bias and Developing Theories of Mind by Andrew N. Meltzoff and Geoffrey R. Loftus, occurs when “people armed with advanced knowledge of an outcome overestimate the likelihood of that particular outcome, in essence claiming that they ‘knew it all along’” (Meltzoff). People who are victims of this very common bias can be drawn to the idea of going to the past to fix all of their problems because they live in the present. Knowing what the present holds, people believe that if they went back in time, they could change the future and, in turn, have a better

    Read More

  • Parent-Child Relationship

    1378 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edited by Raymond J. Corsini. Encyclopedia of Psychology, Second Edition, Volume 1. New York: John Wiley and Sons Inc.

    Read More

  • Think Before You Act

    862 Words  | 2 Pages

    All my life I have been taught to think before I act, in order to prevent myself from making a mistake. Yet, I have learned through my many errors in life not to duplicate my unfortunate actions. Many times I have been told to consider the consequences of my actions prior to acting. I have found, though, that this may not always be the best approach. I would not argue this to be true in every situation, however. What is to be said, for example, of those who have acted on their emotions, only to find themselves in prison? One must be able to know instinctively which situations are appropriate to be dealt with solely on emotions, and which are to require a certain amount of development. Nevertheless, as von Kleist states, in “On Thinking Things Over: A Paradox”, the proper time to reflect on an action is after the act has occurred.

    Read More

  • Essay On Common Sense

    1015 Words  | 3 Pages

    As of there is some of our common sense ideas have been backed up with our research evidence, but some of them haven’t. (Schooler, 2015) There are few factors in one topic where we will touch and talk about in this paper. The first factor will be hindsight bias, errors in judging the future’s foreseeability and in remembering our past combine. (Myers, 2012) Second factor will focus on how can we reduce the hindsight based on our sense that our common sense is always right but they aren’t. The lastly but not least factor will explain about my experience and real life

    Read More

More about Effects Of Counterfactual Thinking

Open Document