THE ROLE OF COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING IN REASONING

Counterfactual generation is an important part of reasoning. Both the judgment of events and affective reactions to those events depend not only on the events themselves, but on counterfactual alternatives to t hose events. Counterfactual thinking serves several positive functions . However, there are also dysfunctional aspects. First, judgments of g eneral versus specific instances are often inconsistent, and this lead s to problematic, irrational decisions. We explain these inconsistenci es by suggesting that specific instances easily afford counterfactuals , and are judged in the context of these counterfactuals. Alternativel y, general cases are evaluated in terms of quite different contrast ca ses, global expectations. Second, in assigning blame for the negative outcome of a chain of events, people assign too much causality to rece nt events. Our explanation is that these recent events are most access ible and are most likely to be mutated in the course of counterfactual generation. Such mutability is important in causal assignment.