Lecture 3b - Imaginary Thinking

Question 1

What is Counterfactual thinking?

Answer 1

the imagination of alternatives to reality

simulate a sequence of causal events

Question 2

When do we generate counterfactual thinking?

Answer 2

Spontaneous and pervasive

Occurs in absence of linguistic cues

Question 3

When are more counterfactual created?

Answer 3

When bad things happen – think about all the things that you could have done differently for a better outcome
Closer to a better outcome - more upset

Question 4

Individual differences in counterfactual thinking

Answer 4

More counterfactuals created when mood is low
is it the cause of the effect of low mood?
Feel bad so generate alternative or generate alternative so feel bad

Question 5

Effects of Positive emotions

Answer 5

Feel more positive emotions after something bad is over - no more food poisoning

Question 6

Regret and Distress

Answer 6

Following a traumatic event, the more frequently Ss were undoing the event, the more distress they reported even after controlling for more general ruminations (Davis et al., 1995)
Feeling of could have done more

Question 7

Emotions and Events

Answer 7

Counterfactuals shape emotions
The emotion experienced may also be directly related to the type of event mutated.
undoing uncontrollable event - disappointment
undoing a personal quality - shame

Question 8

Counterfactual and blame

Answer 8

If you always go to the same place and choose somewhere also, you are likely to blame the place.
Maybe didn’t give it a chance

Question 9

Judgments of Luck

Answer 9

Teigen et al. (1999)

People use luck (good / bad) to mean narrowly avoiding a (negative / positive) outcome

Question 10

learning from mistakes

Answer 10

Preparation for a task induces upward counterfactual thinking
Generating upward counterfactuals between two anagram tasks leads to improved performance in the second set (Roese, 1994)