Mental models and counterfactual thoughts about what might have been

doi:10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01974-5

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

Volume 6, Issue 10, 1 October 2002, Pages 426-431

https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(02)01974-5 Get rights and content

Abstract

Counterfactual thoughts about what might have been (‘if only…’) are pervasive in everyday life. They are related to causal thoughts, they help people learn from experience and they influence diverse cognitive activities, from creativity to probability judgements. They give rise to emotions and social ascriptions such as guilt, regret and blame. People show remarkable regularities in the aspects of the past they mentally ‘undo’ in their counterfactual thoughts. These regularities provide clues about their mental representations and cognitive processes, such as keeping in mind true possibilities, and situations that are false but temporarily supposed to be true.

Section snippets

Counterfactual thinking is pervasive

The day-to-day exercise of imagination skills starts early: children as young as two years of age can understand what ‘nearly’ or ‘almost’ happened and the development of counterfactual thought underlies their capacity for pretend play and to ascribe false beliefs to others 9., 10.. The significance of great drama or moments of epiphany in literature often rests on an appreciation of a counterfactual alternative. For example, the characters in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot instantiate a

What's it good for?

Many studies of the antecedents of counterfactual thoughts and their consequences, including studies of the relation between counterfactual and causal thought (see Box 2), show that they are generated most often after bad outcomes, particularly goal failures [23]. ‘Upward’ counterfactuals about how a situation could have turned out better, for example, ‘if I'd studied I would have got an A’, serve a preparatory function, helping people to learn from mistakes [24]. Aviation pilots in near

What is mutable?

People show extraordinary regularities in zooming in on the same things from the infinite set of possibilities [2]. In ‘subjunctive instant replays’ [16], what people focus on gives a clue about the ‘fault lines’ of the imagination 1., 2.. Various constraints limit their counterfactuals: they tend not to alter natural laws, for example, ‘if only the plane had fallen up…’ [28]; their counterfactuals are goal-driven 23., 28., 35.; and they are hugely influenced by the availability of alternatives

How do people mentally undo reality?

One view of counterfactual generation is that people compute norms: a normal event evokes representations that resemble it, whereas an abnormal event has highly available alternatives [2]. The mutability or ‘slippability’ [16] of attributes is controlled by heuristics 2., 41., and the availability of alternatives is distinct from expectations. For example, two travellers delayed by 30 minutes miss their respective flights. One flight departed on time, the other 25 minutes late (and so was

Conclusions

People think about what might have been to try to prevent bad outcomes and to feel better. They mentally undo events within their control that are intentional, exceptional, recent, or a first cause, among other factors. These events may be most readily undone in imaginary simulations because of the sorts of representations they construct of reality. They represent what is true, including what is false but temporarily supposed to be true. Their mental representations make only some information

Questions for future research

•
How are epistemic thoughts about what might have been and deontic thoughts about what should have been related?
•
What factors influence judgements of the plausibility and closeness of counterfactuals?
•
How do counterfactuals focus attention on the factual or counterfactual possibility?
•
What commonalities exist between counterfactual thoughts and creative cognition?

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Phil Johnson-Laird and Mark Keane for their comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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Trends in Cognitive Sciences

ReviewMental models and counterfactual thoughts about what might have been

Abstract

Section snippets

Counterfactual thinking is pervasive

What's it good for?

What is mutable?

How do people mentally undo reality?

Conclusions

Questions for future research

Acknowledgements

World Politics

Cogn. Sci.

Br. J. Soc. Psychol.

J. Exp. Psychol. Gen.

The simulation heuristic

Norm theory: comparing reality to its alternatives

Psychol. Rev.

Counterfactual thinking

Psychol. Bull.

Context and Content

Indicative and subjunctive

Analysis

Chinese and English counterfactuals: the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis revisited

Cognition

Useful counterfactuals

Linkoping Electronic Articles in Computer and Information Science

Counterfactual thinking in preschool children: mental state and causal inferences

Are errors in false belief tasks symptomatic of a broader difficulty with counterfactuality?

Cogn. Dev.

Poking counterfactual holes in covering laws, cognitive styles and historical reasoning

Am. Polit. Sci. Rev.

The temporal pattern to the experience of regret

J. Pers. Soc. Psychol.

If dancers ate their shoes: inductive reasoning with factual and counterfactual premises

Mem. Cogn.

Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern

Are theories of imagery theories of imagination? An active perception approach to conscious mental content

Cogn. Sci.

Review
Mental models and counterfactual thoughts about what might have been