Counterfactual thinking is a concept in psychology that involves the human tendency to create possible alternatives to life events that have already occurred; something that is contrary to what actually happened. Counterfactual thinking is, as it states: "counter to the facts". These thoughts consist of the "What if?" and the "If only..." that occur when thinking of how things could have turned out differently. Counterfactual thoughts include things that – in the present – could not have happened because they are dependent on events that did not occur in the past.
Overview
The term counterfactual is defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as "contrary to fact".Merriam-Webster 2018 https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/counterfactual A counterfactual thought occurs when a person modifies a factual prior event and then assesses the consequences of that change. A person may imagine how an outcome could have turned out differently, if the antecedents that led to that event were different. For example, a person may reflect upon how a car accident could have turned out by imagining how some of the factors could have been different, for example, "If only I hadn't been speeding." These alternatives can be better or worse than the actual situation, and in turn give improved or more disastrous possible outcomes, "If only I hadn't been speeding, my car wouldn't have been wrecked" or "If I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt, I would have been killed".Roese, N.J. & Olson, J.M. (1995). What Might Have Been: The Social Psychology of Counterfactual Thinking. New Jersey: Erlbaum.
Counterfactual thoughts have been shown to produce negative emotions; however they may also produce functional or beneficial effects. There are two types of counterfactual thoughts: downward and upward. Downward counterfactuals are thoughts about how the situation could have been worse; and people tend to have a more positive view of the actual outcome. Upward counterfactuals are thoughts about how the situation could have been better. These kinds of thoughts tend to make people feel dissatisfied and unhappy; however, upward counterfactuals are the kind of thoughts that allow people to think about how they can do better in the future. These counterfactual thoughts, or thoughts of what could have happened, can affect people's emotions, such as causing them to experience regret, guilt, relief, or satisfaction. They can also affect how they view social situations, such as who deserves blame and responsibility.Markman, K.; Klein, W.; & Suhr, E. (2009). Handbook of mental simulation and human imagination. Hove, Psychology Press.
History
Counterfactual thinking has philosophical roots and can be traced back to early philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato who pondered the epistemological status of subjunctive suppositions and their nonexistent but feasible outcomes.Birke, Dorothee, Butter, Michael, and Koppe, Tilmann (Eds.) (2011). Counterfactual Thinking – Counterfactual Writing, Berlin, de Gruyter. In the seventeenth century, the German philosopher Leibniz argued that there could be an infinite number of alternate worlds, so long as they were not in conflict with laws of logic. The philosopher Nicholas Rescher (as well as others) has written about the interrelationship between counterfactual reasoning and modal logic.Rescher, N. (1964). Hypothetical reasoning. Amsterdam: North Holland Pub Co. This relationship may also be exploited in literature or Victorian Studies, painting and poetry.Miller, A. (2009, August). Not Forthcoming. Paper presented at Dickens Universe, Santa Cruz. Ruth M.J. Byrne in The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality (2005) proposed that the mental representations and cognitive processes that underlie the imagination of alternatives to reality are similar to those that underlie rational thought, including reasoning from counterfactual conditionals.
More recently, counterfactual thinking has gained interest from a psychological perspective. Cognitive scientists have examined the mental representations and cognitive processes that underlie the creation of counterfactuals.Byrne, R.M.J. (2005). The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality. MA: MIT Press. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (1982) pioneered the study of counterfactual thought, showing that people tend to think 'if only' more often about exceptional events than about normal events.Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1982). "The simulation heuristic". In Kahneman, D. P. Slovic, and Tversky, A. (eds.). Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, pp. 201–208. New York: Cambridge University Press. Many related tendencies have since been examined, e.g., whether the event is an action or inaction, whether it is controllable, its place in the temporal order of events, or its causal relation to other events.Mandel, D. R., Hilton, D. J., & Catellani, P. (Eds.). (2005). Routledge research international series in social psychology. The psychology of counterfactual thinking. Routledge. Social psychologists have studied cognitive functioning and counterfactuals in a larger, social context.
Early research on counterfactual thinking took the perspective that these kinds of thoughts were indicative of poor coping skills, psychological error or bias, and were generally dysfunctional in nature. As research developed, a new wave of insight beginning in the 1990s began taking a functional perspective, believing that counterfactual thinking served as a largely beneficial behavioral regulator. Although negative feelings and biases arise, the overall benefit is positive for human behavior.
Activation
There are two portions to counterfactual thinking: activation and content. The activation portion is whether we allow the counterfactual thought to seep into our conscious thought. The content portion creates the end scenario for the counterfactual antecedent.
The activation portion raises the question of why we allow ourselves to think of other alternatives that could have been beneficial or harmful to us. It is believed that humans tend to think of counterfactual ideas when there were exceptional circumstances that led to an event, and thus could have been avoided in the first place. We also tend to create counterfactual ideas when we feel guilty about a situation and wish to exert more control. For example, in a study by Davis et al., parents who suffered the death of an infant were more likely to counterfactually think 15 months later if they felt guilty about the incident or if there were unusual circumstances surrounding the death. In the case of a death due to natural causes, parents tended to counterfactually think less over the course of time.
Another factor that determines how much we use counterfactual thought is how close we were to an alternative outcome. This is especially true when there is a negative outcome that was this close to a positive outcome. For example, in a study by Meyers-Levy and Maheswaran, subjects were more likely to counterfactual think alternative circumstances for a target person if their house burned down three days after they forgot to renew their insurance versus six months after they forgot to renew their insurance. Therefore, the idea that an outcome almost occurred plays a role in the reason we emphasize that outcome.
Functional basis
One may wonder why we continue to think in counterfactual ways if these thoughts tend to make us feel guilty or negatively about an outcome. One of the functional reasons for this is to avoid making mistakes again in the future. If a person is able to consider another outcome based on a different path, they may take that path in the future and avoid the undesired outcome. The past cannot be changed, but similar situations may occur in the future, and thus we take our counterfactual thoughts as a learning experience. For example, if a person has a poor job interview and thinks about how it may have been more successful if they had responded in a more confident manner, they are more likely to respond more confidently in their next interview.
Risk aversion
Another reason we continue to use counterfactual thinking is to avoid situations that may be unpleasant to us, which is part of our approach and avoidance behavior. Often, people make a conscious effort to avoid situations that may make them feel unpleasant. However, despite our best efforts, we sometimes find ourselves in these unpleasant situations anyway. In these situations, we continue to use counterfactual thinking to think of ways that that event could have been avoided and in turn to learn to avoid those situations again in the future. For example, if a person finds hospitals to be an uncomfortable place, but find themselves in one due to cutting their finger while doing dishes, they may think of ways they could have avoided going to the hospital by tending to the wound themselves or doing the dishes more carefully.
Behavior intention
We continue to use counterfactual thoughts to change our future behavior in a way that is more positive, or behavior intention. This can involve making a change in our behavior immediately after the negative event occurred. By actively making a behavioral change, we are completely avoiding the problem again in the future. An example is forgetting Mother's Day, and immediately writing the date on the calendar for the following year, to avoid the problem.
Goal-directed activity
In the same sense as behavior intention, people tend to use counterfactual thinking in goal-directed activity. Studies have shown that counterfactuals serve a preparative function for both individuals and groups. When people fail to achieve their goals, counterfactual thinking may be activated (e.g., studying more after a disappointing grade). When they engage in upward counterfactual thinking, people are able to imagine alternatives with better positive outcomes. The outcome seems worse when compared to positive alternative outcomes. This realization motivates them to take positive action in order to meet their goal in the future.
Markman, Gavanski, Sherman, and McMullen (1993) identified the repeatability of an event as an important factor in determining what function will be used. For events that happen repeatedly (e.g., sports) there is an increased motivation to imagine alternative antecedents in order to prepare for a better future outcome. For one-time events, however, the opportunity to improve future performance does not exist, so it is more likely that the person will try to alleviate disappointment by imagining how things could have been worse. The direction of the counterfactual statement is also indicative of which function may be used. Upward counterfactuals have a greater preparative function and focus on future improvement, while downward counterfactuals are used as a coping mechanism in an affective function. Furthermore, additive counterfactuals have shown greater potential to induce behavioral intentions of improving performance. Hence, counterfactual thinking motivates individuals to goal-oriented actions in order to attain their (failed) goal in the future.
Collective action