Abstract Thinking about what might have been—counterfactual thinking—is a common
feature of the mental landscape. Key questions about counterfactual thinking center on why …

Counterfactual thoughts mutate reality to imagine how things might have been different than
they actually are. These types of thoughts are more frequent when the antecedent is unusual …

In this chapter, we bridge research on scientific and counterfactual reasoning. We review
findings that children struggle with many aspects of scientific experimentation in the absence …

Introduction: Information processing theories of workplace safety suggest that cognition is an
antecedent of safety behavior. However, little research has directly tested cognitive factors …

Counterfactuals, thoughts about “what might have been,” play an important role in causal
judgment, emotion, and motivation, and spontaneously arise during daily life. However …

Functional Theory, the prevailing perspective on the function of counterfactual thinking,
posits that the primary purpose of this form of mental simulation is to prepare individuals for …

This research examines how counterfactual potency (CP), the multiplicative effect of the
likelihoods of the “if” and “then” clauses of counterfactuals, determines the effects of …

After negative events, an individual may think about how a situation could have turned out
differently. These counterfactual thoughts can improve similar future outcomes. While some …

Despite the vast literature exploring the antecedents and consequences of counterfactual
thought, no work has examined if and how goal importance influences the counterfactual …