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Four studies indicated that moods and self-esteem can influence counterfactual thoughts. This was shown for counterfactuals generated for hypothetical situations (Study 1), for recalled life events (Study 2), and for agreement with counterfactual statements after laboratory tasks (Studies 3 and 4). High self-esteem (HSE) and low self-esteem (LSE) persons generated (Studies 1 and 2) or agreed to (Studies 3 and 4) more downward (worse than actuality) than upward (better than actuality) counterfactuals when in good moods, but they diverged in reactions to bad moods: HSE persons thought more about downward counterfactuals, whereas LSE persons thought more about upward counterfactuals. HSE persons felt better after generating downward counterfactuals (Study 2) and took longer to agree to analogous statements (Studies 3 and 4) in bad moods, suggesting attempts at mood repair.

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Two studies demonstrated that moods can influence counterfactual direction, and that self-esteem and external mood attributions can moderate such influences. This was shown for hypothetical situations (Study 1) and for performances after a laboratory task (Study 2). Although both high self-esteem (HSE) and low self-esteem (LSE) persons generated more downward than upward counterfactuals when in positive moods (Study 1), they diverged in their reactions to negative moods (Studies 1 & 2): HSE persons generated more downward than upward counterfac tuals, whereas LSE persons generated more upward than downward counterfactu als. HSE persons also felt better after generating downward counterfactuals when in negative moods (Study 2), suggesting a mood repair strategy. Importantly, in both studies external attributions for moods moderated this pattern. Mood repair strategies were not used when moods were externally attributed, implicating the self and the informational value of moods in this process.Counterfactual thinking refers to mental simulations of alternative pos sible outcomes that people often have in response to life events. Re searchers have focused on moods as consequences of counterfactual direction. By way of contrast (e.g., Schwarz & Bless, 1992), downward counterfactuals simulated alternatives that are worse than actuality (e.g., "At least I was wearing my seatbelt, or I might have been more seriously injured") elicit positive moods, whereas upward counterfac-

The present set of studies examines how working memory capacity (WMC) relates to performance on a Remote Associates Task (RAT), originally designed by Mednick (1962) as a quantifiable creative problem solving assessment. The source of fixation was manipulated across two sets of RAT items. One set was neutral with no specific fixation embedded in them, while the second set was baseball-misleading, designed so that prior knowledge of baseball would lead to an incorrect solution attempt (Wiley, 1998). WMC scores were positively related to performance on RAT items in all conditions, except one. High baseball knowledge participants' WMC scores did not relate to performance on the baseball-misleading RAT. While in general WMC may lead to better RAT performance, these results suggest that when there is a candidate solution strongly activated by prior knowledge, WMC may actually lead to too much focus on the incorrect solution and exacerbate mental sets.