I.—THE CONTRARY-TO-FACT CONDITIONAL<sup>1</sup>

Chisholm, Roderick M.

doi:10.1093/mind/lv.219.289

Cited by 170 publications

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“…They are epitomized by the phrase "what might have been," which implicates a juxtaposition of an imagined versus factual state of affairs. The term counterfactual derives from philosophical writings in which the logical status of possibility and probabilistic reasoning were closely scrutinized (e.g., Chisholm, 1946;Evans & Over, 2004;Goodman, 1947;Kvart, 1986;Lewis, 1973;Vaihinger, 1965). For example, to say that a basketball team "almost" won a game is to specify a counterfactual outcome with a particular (although not necessarily exact) level of probability.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking

Epstude

Roese

2008

Pers Soc Psychol Rev

659

713

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Counterfactuals are thoughts about alternatives to past events, that is, thoughts of what might have been. This article provides an updated account of the functional theory of counterfactual thinking, suggesting that such thoughts are best explained in terms of their role in behavior regulation and performance improvement. The article reviews a wide range of cognitive experiments indicating that counterfactual thoughts may influence behavior by either of two routes: a content-specific pathway (which involves specific informational effects on behavioral intentions, which then influence behavior) and a content-neutral pathway (which involves indirect effects via affect, mind-sets, or motivation). The functional theory is particularly useful in organizing recent findings regarding counterfactual thinking and mental health. The article concludes by considering the connections to other theoretical conceptions, especially recent advances in goal cognition.Keywords counterfactual thinking; regret; goals; rumination; mental simulation; inference; decision making; conditional; volition; motivation Who among us has never wondered about what might have been had some past choice been different? With perhaps a little more effort, you might have been an athlete, a doctor, maybe even a rock star. Who among us has never regretted choices made and actions taken? Maybe you should have studied harder in school, traveled more when you had the chance, or had the salmon for lunch instead of the pasta. And who has never pondered a lost love and imagined how passionate it might have been? Thinking about what might have been, about alternatives to our own pasts, is central to human thinking and emotion. Such thoughts are called counterfactual thoughts.Counterfactual thoughts are mental representations of alternatives to past events, actions, or states (Byrne, 2005;Roese, 1997). They are epitomized by the phrase "what might have been," which implicates a juxtaposition of an imagined versus factual state of affairs. The term counterfactual derives from philosophical writings in which the logical status of possibility and probabilistic reasoning were closely scrutinized (e.g., Chisholm, 1946;Evans & Over, 2004;Goodman, 1947;Kvart, 1986;Lewis, 1973;Vaihinger, 1965). For example, to say that a basketball team "almost" won a game is to specify a counterfactual outcome with a particular (although not necessarily exact) level of probability. In everyday life, an individual's counterfactual musings often take the form of a conditional proposition, in which the antecedent corresponds to an action and the consequent corresponds to an outcome (e.g., "If only I had studied, I would have passed the exam"). Crucially, counterfactual thoughts are often evaluative, specifying alternatives that are in some tangible way better or worse than actuality. Better alternatives are termed upward counterfactuals; worse alternatives are termed downward counterfactuals (Markman, Gavanski, Sherman, & McMullen, 1993; Please address correspondence to Neal J. R...

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking

Epstude

Roese

2008

Pers Soc Psychol Rev

659

713

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“…There are no simple deductive rules that prescribe how to reason from counterfactual assumptions (e.g., Chisholm, 1946). Logically, both the generalist and the particularist solutions are equally correct.…”

Section: Belief Revision Paradigmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This suggests that when true belief-revision occurs, the process is not simply one of solving a logic problem with arbitrary statements. Beliefrevision and its underlying process of counterfactual reasoning are not a process of applying standard logic as logicians have repeatedly reminded us (e.g., Chisholm, 1946;Lewis, 1973;Rescher, 2007). This is not because children do not reason according to the dictates of Mental Models.…”

Section: Mental Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One way to understand this fundamental belief revision process is to view it as the action of a set of mechanisms embodied in counterfactual reasoning. This type of inference occurs when the individual is compelled to treat the new, disbelieved piece of information as "true", even though it disrupts the existing set of beliefs (Chisholm, 1946;Rescher, 1964). There is ample evidence that adults are skilled at belief-revision and reasoning from false assumptions (e.g., Dieussaert, Schaeken, & d'Ydewalle, 2002;Revlin, Cate, & Rouss, 2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Development of Counterfactual Reasoning in Belief Revision

Hoeck

Revlin²,

Dieussaert³

et al. 2012

PSYCHOL BELG

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The present study examines how children revise beliefs in the face of a new piece of information that they must accept as true and under what circumstances their belief-revision processes differ from college-aged adults. Results suggest that overall, 7-year-old children (children at Stage 2 reasoning; Moshman, 1990) revise beliefs as do adults, by rejecting particular beliefs in favour of more general ones. However, only adults adjust their revision strategy as a consequence of the logical structure of the initial belief set. Adults, but not children, tend to organise their revised beliefs to be consistent with general statements more often when the set of beliefs create a Modus Tollens logic structure than when they create a Modus Ponens structure. This difference in belief revision by the two age groups reflects their sensitivity to logical structure.

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“…The literature on counterfactuals has considerably increased in the recent past in various disciplines, in particular psychology, in social psychology Roese, 1997) as well as in cognitive psychology (Kahneman and Tversky, 1982;Kahneman and Miller, 1986;Harris, German and Mills, 1996;Byrne and Tasso, 1999;Byrne, 2002). The role of language in shaping the counterfactual thought has also been investigated (Bloom, 1981(Bloom, , 1984Au, 1983Au, , 1984Liu, 1985); inquiries on the relationships between counterfactuals and causation have long since attracted the attention of philosophers of science (Chisholm, 1946;Goodman, 1947Goodman, , 1983Popper, 1949;Kneale, 1950;Sosa, 1975); also, the ability of constructing counterfactuals is investigated in medical researches (Hooker, Roese and Park, 2000). Likewise, economists do make extensive use of counterfactual reasoning, mostly self-unconsciously though.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Counterfactual Conditionals

Qing-fu

Aporetics

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Counterfactual conditionals are cognitive tools that we incessantly use during our lives for judgments, evaluations, decisions. Counterfactuals are used for defining concepts as well; an instance of this is attested by the notions of opportunity cost and excess profit, two all-pervasive notions of economics: They are defined by undoing a given scenario and constructing a suitable counterfactual milieu. Focussing on the standard paradigm and Magni's (2000Magni's ( , 2005Magni's ( , 2006 proposal this paper shows that the formal translation of the counterfactual state is not univocal and that Magni's model retains formal properties of symmetry, additive coherence, homeomorphism, which correspond to properties of frame-independence, time invariance, completeness. Two introductory studies are also presented to illustrate how people cope with these counterfactuals and ascertain whether either model is seen as more "natural". A brief discussion of the results obtained is also provided.

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I.—THE CONTRARY-TO-FACT CONDITIONAL¹

Cited by 170 publications

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The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking

The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking

The Development of Counterfactual Reasoning in Belief Revision

Counterfactual Conditionals

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I.—THE CONTRARY-TO-FACT CONDITIONAL1

Cited by 170 publications

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The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking

The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking

The Development of Counterfactual Reasoning in Belief Revision

Counterfactual Conditionals

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I.—THE CONTRARY-TO-FACT CONDITIONAL¹