Postdecisional counterfactual thinking by actors and readers.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Decision Making
• Counterfactual Thinking

Background:

• Previous research on counterfactual thinking primarily examined fictional scenarios.
• The role of the individual (actor vs. reader) in shaping counterfactual thought processes is underexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how an individual's role (actor experiencing an event versus reader of a story) influences counterfactual thinking about decision outcomes.
• To test the hypothesis that role differences affect the availability of information, thereby impacting counterfactual judgments.

Main Methods:

• Conducted eight empirical studies comparing counterfactual thinking in actors and readers.
• Participants experienced or read about decision-making scenarios with negative outcomes.
• Assessed the specific mental alterations participants made to undo the negative outcomes.

Main Results:

• Readers typically altered the protagonist's initial choice to address a problem.
• Actors, however, focused on changing aspects of the problem itself to negate the negative outcome.
• This role-dependent effect on counterfactual thinking was observed regardless of motivational factors.

Conclusions:

• An individual's role significantly shapes their counterfactual thinking patterns.
• Current theories of counterfactual thinking need to incorporate the actor-reader distinction.
• Future research should consider diverse roles when examining how people mentally undo past events.