Counterfactual research and Norrn Theory (Kahneman & Miller, 1986) predict that abnormal antecedents will be more mutable than normal antecedents. Individuals who behaved abnormally prior to accidental or criminal victimization (e.g., choosing a different route home) are usually awarded higher compensation than those victimized in more routine circumstances. Abnormality is said to provoke more available alternatives, and is cited as a positive correlate of affect (the emotional amplification hypothesis). Enhanced affective response is said to be responsible for greater compensation to victims and more severe punishment of offenders. This thesis challenged the notion that exceptional circumstances always have more available alternatives than do routine circumstances, incorporating higher methodological rigor and a more realistic legal context than previous studies. Results indicated that the degree of alternative availability is not so much a function of normality itself but of how normality is conveyed in scenarios. Routine circumstances can be just as mutable as exceptional circumstances. Scenario studies investigating criminal punishment which separated alternative availability and normality provided evidence of a moderating effect of availability, as well as an interaction between victim and offender availability. The findings help to revise assertions made by psychological and legal scholars concerning mutability.

It is argued that an analysis of causation using counterfactual conditionals can be given. Causes and effects are considered to be propositional entities, and a semantics for counterfactuals employing possible worlds is presupposed. The analysis stems from an attempt to handle cases proving problematic for other counterfactual analyses. Preempted causes, which would have been causes had they not been preempted by causes, are distinguished from causes by requiring that a causal chain connecting cause and effect exist. The condition is strengthened to require that the causal chain still would have existed even had the preempted causes been false. Causal chains are analyzed as sequences of true propositions satisfying two conditions: any member after the first would not have been true had its immediate predecessor alone been false, and the truth of any member of the sequence is sufficient for the truth of any subsequent member. The analysis is weakened slightly to permit many causes to overdetermine an effect. The analysis is then amended to exclude certain noncausal connections. Though it is true that had Socrates not died, Xanthippe would not have become a widow, his dying did not cause her to become a widow. To yield this result, an analysis is offered of the relation that logically simple propositions bear to the more complex propositions that they make true. It is then proposed that the sets of simple propositions making the cause and effect true not entail the effect and the cause, respectively. Finally, an attempt is made to distinguish between cause and effect. It is argued that cases of backward causation are possible, and thus no analysis should require causes to be temporally prior to effects. It is proposed that only when there is symmetry with respect to the subjunctive conditions of the analysis should temporal considerations be employed to discriminate cause and effect.

Counterfactuals generated by people who have experienced traumatic life events were examined to elucidate their significance for the coping process. In Study 1, 93 respondents were interviewed 4-7 years after the loss of their spouse or child in a motor vehicle accident. In Study 2, 124 respondents were interviewed 3 weeks and 18 months following the death of their child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Across these two studies it was found that (a) counterfactuals that undid the traumatic event were commonly reported; (b) the focus of counterfactuals was typically on one's own (in)actions, rather than on the behavior of others; (c) the more freguently respondents were undoing the event, the more distress they reported; and (d) this relation held even after controlling for more general ruminations. In Study 3, 106 respondents were interviewed one week following their spinal cord injury. In this study, self-implicating counterfactuals were shown to predict ascriptions of self-blame, controlling for causal attributions and foreseeability estimates. Taken together, these field data suggest that counterfactuals play an important role in how people cope with traumatic life events. Possible roles that these counterfactual thoughts might play are discussed.

Counterfactual thoughts involve the consideration of how events might have progressed differently. These conditional statements include an antecedent (e.g., "If only I were less impulsive") and a consequent (e.g., "I would not have been unfaithful") (Markman, Gavanski, Sherman, & McMullen, 1993). The statements allow an alternate ending to what actually occurred and they often occur spontaneously. Such statements have many variations and may evoke negative (e.g., Regret that my relationship might be over) and positive (e.g., Hope that I am learning from my mistakes) reactions.This study investigated the relationship between other-generated counterfactual statements and the recipient's emotional response to these statements. Vignettes were developed by the author and distributed to a college student population. The content of the vignettes involved an individual was involved in a romantic infidelity and then entered group therapy to deal with this issue. Another group member makes a counterfactual statement to this individual referencing this incident. Direction of the counterfactual statement, severity of the negative event and its potential repeatability were all considered in assessing this relationship.A 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design was used. Direction of the counterfactual statement (i.e., upward, downward), event repeatability (repeatable, nonrepeatable) and severity of infidelity (low, high) all served as between-subject factors. The two dependent variables were the Positive Affect and Negative Affect subscales of the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS). Statistical analysis involved two analyses of variance (ANOVA), one for each dependent variable.No significant univariate interactions or main effects were found. In short, the results of the current study failed to support any of the author's hypotheses. The amounts of positive and negative affect that participants felt did not vary significantly as a function of counterfactual direction, severity of negative event or repeatability. It appears that the within group differences are larger than the between group differences. These results suggest that individuals' responses to other-generated counterfactual statements differ from their responses to self-generated counterfactual thoughts. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Counterfactuals generated by people who have experienced traumatic life events were examined to elucidate their significance for the coping process. In Study 1, 93 respondents were interviewed 4-7 years after the loss of their spouse or child in a motor vehicle accident. In Study 2, 124 respondents were interviewed 3 weeks and 18 months following the death of their child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Across these two studies it was found that (a) counterfactuals that undid the traumatic event were commonly reported; (b) the focus of counterfactuals was typically on one's own (in)actions, rather than on the behavior of others; (c) the more freguently respondents were undoing the event, the more distress they reported; and (d) this relation held even after controlling for more general ruminations. In Study 3, 106 respondents were interviewed one week following their spinal cord injury. In this study, self-implicating counterfactuals were shown to predict ascriptions of self-blame, controlling for causal attributions and foreseeability estimates. Taken together, these field data suggest that counterfactuals play an important role in how people cope with traumatic life events. Possible roles that these counterfactual thoughts might play are discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

Kwong Yuk Yee, Jessica. / "June 2002." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-97). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

Counterfactual thought is thinking about what might have been. It is remembering the past, not as it actually happened, but how we wish it happened. Research has shown that counterfactual thought affects a wide range of psychological processes including emotion and decision making. This research examined the counterfactual thoughts of individuals engaged in a gambling task. A 2 (outcome groups) X 2 (counterfactual direction) X 4 (gambling type) Analysis of Variance did not find significant differences in the number of counterfactuals generated between gambling groups. It was found, however, that individuals who lost the task generated more counterfactuals than individuals who won the task. The discussion section explains how future researchers could use this unique task along with a more sophisticated method of assessing counterfactual thought to understand more fully how counterfactual thought affects gambling behavior. / Department of Psychological Science

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed December 5, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-164).

有關在台階形的公共物品兩難(step-level public good dilemma)中集體失敗的心理影響的研究一直很少。本研究探討在集體失敗後反事實思維 (counterfactual thinking) 對群體成員情緒和隨後合作行為的影響。研究1確定了兩種會顯著增加失敗後合作行為的反事實思維：關注(1)個人的成果 或 (2) 群體的成果，並以自我為中心的向上反事實思維 (self-focused upward counterfactual thinking)。此外，內疚 (guilt)中介了反事實思維對合作行為的影響。我們在研究2中發現以自我為中心的向上反事實思維是否會增加或減少，取決於反事實思維中的結果導向(outcome orientation) 及其結構是否為加法式 (additive)，還是減法式(subtractive)。另外，內疚，不行動引起的後悔 (regret of inaction)和行動引起的後悔 (regret of action) 中介了這些反事實思維對合作行為的影響。我們的研究結果指出反事實思維和個別情緒在研究社會困境的重要性。 / Research on the psychological consequences of collective failure in step-level public good dilemmas has remained scant. The present research addressed how counterfactual thinking influenced group members’ emotions and subsequent cooperation after collective failure. In study 1, we identified two types of counterfactuals which significantly increased post-failure cooperation: self-focused upward counterfactuals that concerned about (1) personal outcome and (2) group outcome. Furthermore, guilt mediated the effects of counterfactual thinking on cooperation. In study 2, we demonstrated that self-focused counterfactuals predicted increase or decrease in cooperation, depending on its outcome orientation and structure (additive vs. subtractive). Guilt, regret of inaction and regret of action mediated these effects. Our findings pointed to the need of studying counterfactual thinking and specific emotions in social dilemma. / Detailed summary in vernacular field only. / Yam, Pak Chun. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2012. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 41-49). / Abstracts also in Chinese. / Abstract --- p.4 / Chinese Abstract (摘要) --- p.5 / Introduction --- p.6 / Counterfactual thinking in social dilemma --- p.9 / Counterfactual thinking and emotion --- p.11 / “Feeling-is-for-doing“ approach of emotions in social dilemma --- p.13 / Counterfactual thinking, emotions and cooperation --- p.14 / Overview --- p.17 / Study 1 --- p.17 / Method --- p.18 / Results --- p.21 / Discussion --- p.25 / Study 2 --- p.26 / Method --- p.29 / Results --- p.30 / Discussion --- p.34 / Chapter General Discussion --- p.35 / Implications and Contributions --- p.37 / Limitations and future directions --- p.39 / Conclusion --- p.40 / References --- p.41 / Appendix1 --- p.50 / Measure of regret --- p.50 / Measure of guilt --- p.50 / Measure of anger --- p.50 / Appendix 2 --- p.51 / Counterfactual manipulations used in Study 2 --- p.51

After a negative consumption experience, consumers often like to muse about how their consumption might have turned out better. For example, a traveler who missed a flight may imagine that "if I had taken another transport to the airport, I might have caught the flight," or "I would have been enjoying my vacation if I had caught the flight." These imaginations, called counterfactual thoughts, have been documented to pose two effects on responses to negative consumptions. On one hand, they are functional because they provide corrective information that helps consumers solve problems associated with the consumption (Markman et al. 1993; Roese 1994). On the other hand, they are painful because they accentuate negative feelings about the consumption when they highlight the possibility that the consumption might have turned out better (Gleicher et al. 1990; Markman et al. 1993). Existing understanding on these two effects suggests that while people may learn a good lesson from their counterfactual thoughts, they have to contain the negative feelings induced by these thoughts. / In addition, this research also identifies the situational factors that promote the generation of process- and outcome-focused counterfactuals. Consumers are more likely to generate process-focused (versus outcome-focused) counterfactuals when they expect that the consumption is more likely to repeat. They are more likely to generate outcome-focused (versus process-focused) counterfactuals the closer they had missed a better-off consumption outcome. / In summary, this research contributes to the counterfactual literature by proposing thought focus as a new dimension to classify counterfactuals into process- and outcome-focused counterfactuals. It also advances existing understanding on the two effects of counterfactual generation and demonstrates that consumers may enjoy the problem-solving function of counterfactual generation without paying a psychological cost. Finally, this research provides managers insights into when promoting counterfactual generation is beneficial and when it is undesirable. / This research is motivated to tease out the problem-solving and affect accentuation effects of counterfactual generation, such that people may learn a lesson from counterfactual generation without paying incremental psychological cost. To start with, this research proposes thought focus as a new dimension to classify counterfactual thoughts into process- and outcome-focused counterfactuals. This classification is then used as a means to tease out the two effects of counterfactual generation. Specifically, it is argued that process- and outcome-focused counterfactuals pose differential consequences to consumers who experienced negative consumptions. Process-focused counterfactuals, which focus on the process leading to a better-off imagined outcome (e.g., taking another transport to airport), promote corrective behaviors in subsequent consumptions and reduce the chance of having negative experiences in the future. Outcome-focused counterfactuals, which focus on the benefits brought by a better-off outcome (e.g., enjoying the vacation), intensify the negative feelings (such as disappointment and unhappiness) about the current consumption. / Ho, Ka Yan. / Adviser: Jessica Y. Y. Kwong. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 72-11, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-73). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.