Spontaneous counterfactual thoughts and causal explanations

We report two Experiments to compare counterfactual thoughts about how an outcome could have been different and causal explanations about why the outcome occurred. Experiment 1 showed that people generate counterfactual thoughts more often about controllable than uncontrollable events, whereas they generate causal explanations more often about unexpected than expected events. Counterfactual thoughts focus on specific factors, whereas causal explanations focus on both general and specific factors. Experiment 2 showed that in their spontaneous counterfactual thoughts, people focus on normal events just as often as exceptional events, unlike in directed counterfactual thoughts. The findings are consistent with the suggestion that counterfactual thoughts tend to focus on how a specific unwanted outcome could have been prevented, whereas causal explanations tend to provide more general causal information that enables future understanding, prediction, and intervention in a wide range of situations.

[1]  N. Roese,et al.  Counterfactual Thinking: The Intersection of Affect and Function , 1997 .

[2]  R. Hogarth,et al.  Judging probable cause. , 1986 .

[3]  A. Tversky,et al.  The simulation heuristic , 1982 .

[4]  Clayton Lewis,et al.  Why and How to Learn Why: Analysis-Based Generalization of Procedures , 1988, Cogn. Sci..

[5]  G. Wells,et al.  Mental Simulation of Causality , 1989 .

[6]  N. Roese.  The Functional Basis of Counterfactual Thinking , 1994 .

[7]  Dale T. Miller,et al.  Counterfactuals , Causal Attributions , and the Hindsight Bias : A Conceptual Integration , 1996 .

[8]  Gary L. Wells,et al.  Counterfactual processing of normal and exceptional events , 1989 .

[9]  James M. Olson,et al.  Counterfactuals, Causal Attributions, and the Hindsight Bias: A Conceptual Integration , 1996 .

[10]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Asymmetrical effects of positive and negative events: the mobilization-minimization hypothesis. , 1991, Psychological bulletin.

[11]  L. Sanna,et al.  Antecedents to Spontaneous Counterfactual Thinking: Effects of Expectancy Violation and Outcome Valence , 1996 .

[12]  David Hume.  A Treatise of Human Nature: Being an Attempt to introduce the experimental Method of Reasoning into Moral Subjects , 1972 .

[13]  D. Medin,et al.  The role of covariation versus mechanism information in causal attribution , 1995, Cognition.

[14]  J. Pearl.  Causality: Models, Reasoning and Inference , 2000 .

[15]  D. Kahneman.  Varieties of counterfactual thinking. , 1995 .

[16]  G. Miller,et al.  Language and Perception , 1976 .

[17]  N. Roese,et al.  Counterfactual thinking and regulatory focus: implications for action versus inaction and sufficiency versus necessity. , 1999, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[18]  B. Weiner.  "Spontaneous" causal thinking. , 1985, Psychological bulletin.

[19]  Ruth M. J. Byrne,et al.  Cognitive Processes in Counterfactual Thinking about what Might Have Been , 1997 .

[20]  P. Tetlock,et al.  Poking Counterfactual Holes in Covering Laws: Cognitive Styles and Historical Reasoning , 2001, American Political Science Review.

[21]  D. R. Lehman,et al.  Counterfactual thinking and ascriptions of cause and preventability. , 1996, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[22]  D. Hilton.  Conversational processes and causal explanation. , 1990 .

[23]  P. Johnson-Laird,et al.  Naive causality: a mental model theory of causal meaning and reasoning 1 1 All reasonings concerning , 2001 .

[24]  R. Byrne,et al.  Counterfactual thinking about actions and failures to act. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[25]  P. Cheng,et al.  Causes versus enabling conditions , 1991, Cognition.

[26]  A. Milne,et al.  A Curry for Your Thoughts: Empathic Effects on Counterfactual Thinking , 1992 .

[27]  A. L. McGill,et al.  Contrastive and counterfactual reasoning in causal judgment. , 1993 .

[28]  R. Wang,et al.  Regrets Of Action And Inaction Across Cultures , 2003 .

[29]  Dale T. Miller,et al.  Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives , 1986 .

[30]  S. Carey,et al.  Functional explanation and the function of explanation , 2006, Cognition.

[31]  Nyla R. Branscombe,et al.  Mental Simulation and Causal Attribution: When Simulating an Event Does Not Affect Fault Assignment , 1995 .

[32]  R. Byrne.  Précis of The Rational Imagination: How People Create Alternatives to Reality , 2007, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[33]  J. Mackie,et al.  The cement of the universe : a study of causation , 1977 .

[34]  S. Kanazawa.  Outcome or Expectancy? Antecedent of Spontaneous Causal Attribution , 1992 .

[35]  P. Tetlock,et al.  Counterfactual Thought Experiments in World Politics Logical, Methodological, and Psychological Perspectives , 1996 .

[36]  P. Harris,et al.  Children's use of counterfactual thinking in causal reasoning , 1996, Cognition.

[37]  Shelley E. Taylor,et al.  Mental simulation, motivation, and action. , 1996 .

[38]  J. Bargh,et al.  The psychology of action : linking cognition and motivation to behavior , 1999 .

[39]  Christopher G. Davis,et al.  The Undoing of Traumatic Life Events , 1995 .

[40]  Franz von Kutschera,et al.  Causation , 1993, J. Philos. Log..

[41]  D. Mandel.  Effect of counterfactual and factual thinking on causal judgements , 2003 .

[42]  N. Roese.  Counterfactual thinking. , 1997, Psychological bulletin.

[43]  P. Harris.  The work of imagination , 1991 .

[44]  M. Lipe.  COUNTERFACTUAL REASONING AS A FRAMEWORK FOR ATTRIBUTION THEORIES , 1991 .

[45]  Ruth M. J. Byrne,et al.  Semifactual “even if” thinking , 2002 .

[46]  Norbert Schwarz,et al.  What triggers causal attributions? The impact of valence and subjective probability. , 1988 .

[47]  Ruth M. J. Byrne,et al.  Deductive reasoning with factual, possible, and counterfactual conditionals , 1999, Memory & cognition.