Abstract
People often ponder what might have been, and these counterfactual inferences have been linked to behavior regulation. Counterfactuals may enhance performance by either a content-specific pathway (via shift in behavioral intentions) and/or a content-neutral pathway (via mindsets or motivation). Three experiments provided new specification of the content-specific pathway. A sequential priming paradigm revealed that counterfactual judgments facilitated RTs to complete behavioral intention judgments relative to control judgments and to a no-judgment baseline (Experiment 1). This facilitation effect was found only for intention judgments that matched the information content of the counterfactual (Experiment 2) and only for intention judgments as opposed to a different judgment that nevertheless focused on the same information content (Experiment 3). These findings clarify the content-specific pathway by which counterfactuals influence behavior.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 845-852 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Journal of Experimental Social Psychology |
| Volume | 45 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2009 |
Funding
This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health grant R01-MH055578. We are indebted to the undergraduate students who helped to run these experiments (including several preliminary experiments not reported here): Hazer Adiguel, Linda Anderson, Joseph Baker, Justas Birgiolas, Justin Cheng, Stefanie Cramer, Maureen Farrell, Stacy Friel, Michael Gajos, Katherine Mimnaugh, Christina Pieracci, Gregory Scott, Kristen Seemayer, Anita Shankar, Lauren Simpson, and John Siy. We are also grateful to Chi-Yue Chiu, Kai Epstude, Keith Markman, and K.C. McCulloch for providing feedback on previous drafts of this paper.
Keywords
- Counterfactual thinking
- Goal cognition
- Intentions
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Social Psychology
- Sociology and Political Science