Counterfactual thinking about actions and failures to act

When people think counterfactually about how a situation could have turned out differently, they mentally undo events in regular ways (e.g., they focu s on actions not failures to act). Four experiments examine the recent disc overy that the focus on actions in the short term switches to inactions in the long term. The experiments show that this temporal switch occurs only f or particular sorts of situations. Experiment 1 showed no temporal pattern to the agency effect when 112 participants judged emotional impact and freq uency of "if-only" thoughts from both short- and long-term perspectives for an investment scenario. Experiment 2 showed no temporal pattern when 190 p articipants considered a college choice scenario with a good outcome. Exper iment 3 showed no temporal pattern when 131 participants considered an inve stment scenario even when the situation for the actor and nonactor was bad from the outset. Experiment 4, with 113 participants, showed a focus on act ions even when the investment loss was equal for both the actor and nonacto r. The implications of the results are discussed in terms of what is explic itly available in the mental representation of actions and inactions.