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Counterfactual
Research News
How might your life have
unfolded differently? What if your parents never met? Perhaps you should have
studied harder in school, or asked out so-and-so when you had the chance.
Such thoughts of what might have been seem to be a common part of everyday
thinking, sometimes irresistibly drawing our attention.
Reflections on what might have been are termed counterfactual thoughts.
People engage in counterfactual thinking all the time. These thoughts
are sometimes painful, as when they lead to the emotion of regret ("I
should have tried harder ..."), but they are also an essential component
of how we act, live, and succeed.
If Only is the new book that explores
these and other fascinating questions about the psychology of regret and
counterfactual thinking. The book is aimed at a general audience, and is
designed to entertain as well as to inform.
This web site has been
around since 1996, intended to be a resource for students and researchers who
have an interest in the scientific study of counterfactual thinking. Here you
will find bibliographic listings of scholarly publications on the psychology of
regret and counterfactual thinking.
New Books:
Byrne, R. M.
J. (2005). The rational imagination: How people create alternatives
to reality. MIT Press.
Evans, J. S., & Over,
D. E. (2004). If. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mandel, D. R., Hilton, D.
J., & Catellani, P. (2005). The psychology of counterfactual thinking.
London:
Routledge.
Roese, N. (2005). If
only. New York:
Broadway Books.
Interesting Web Links:
Uchronia: A web site all about
the use of counterfactuals in short stories and novels. Interested in
what might have been had the South won the civil war, if the Germans had won
the Second World War, or if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated? These and
a zillion other such "what might have been" stories are chronicled
here.
The counterfactual
research news site is maintained by Dr. Neal Roese, Department of Psychology,
University of Illinois.
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