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Counterfactual thinking is a term of psychology that describes the tendency people have to imagine alternatives to reality. Humans are predisposed to think about how things could have turned out differently if only..., and also to imagine what if?.

Counterfactuals are conditional prepositions, containing an antecedent and a consequence e.g.,If Matt had ran, he would have caught the bus.

Overview
Counterfactual literally means, contrary to the facts. A counterfactual thought occurs when a person modifies a factual antecedent and then assesses the consequences of that mutation. A person may imagine how an outcome could have turned out differently, and they can reflect on how if the antecedents that led to the that event might have been were different. For example, a person may reflect upon how a car accident could have turned out, and they can reflect on by imagining how some of the antecedents might have been different e.g., if only I hadn't been speeding... or the same even if I had been going slower.... People can imagine alternatives that are better or worse than reality, e.g., if only I hadn't been speeding, my car wouldn't have been wrecked or if I hadn't been wearing a seatbelt I would have been killed (Roese & Olson, 1995). People can contemplate the consequences of the alternative outcome. Their counterfactual thoughts These thoughts can affect their emotions, such as regret, guilt, relief, or satisfaction ;, their social ascriptions such as blame and responsibility, and their causal judgments (Markman, Klein, & Suhr,  2009).

Counterfactual thinking is marked during the period immediately after a negotiation has ended. In this context, the participants are more likely to dwell on alternative outcomes which were plausibly missed rather than thinking about the unwanted consequences which were effectively avoided.

In fact, one of the most significant areas where counterfactuals arose was in social or political philosophy. Most treatments of society had to be limited to a strictly "logical" analysis, else they would be condemned to being viewed as "idealistic" or "unrealistic", certainly not "scientific". If one were to talk about how society might be different (for example, not based upon slavery), one was viewed as being hopelessly unscientific or even "romantic". How then to discuss a society not yet existent (a society without slavery, to continue the example)? Counterfactual reasoning provided such a way to escape the limits of a strictly "logical" analysis, yet not be idealistic. However, can counterfactual reasoning be viewed as "logical" (or scientific)?

The well known philosopher Nicholas Rescher (as well as others) has written about the interrelationship between counterfactual reasoning and Modal logic. The relationship between counterfactual reasoning based upon Modal logics may also be exploited in literature or Victorian Studies, painting and poetry.

History
The origin of counterfactual thinking has philosophical roots and can be traced back to early philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato who pondered the epistemological status of subjunctive suppositions and their nonexistent but feasible outcomes. In the seventeenth century, the German philosopher, Leibniz, argued that there could be an infinite number of alternate worlds, so long as they were not in conflict with laws of logic (Roese & Olson, 1995). The well known philosopher Nicholas Rescher (as well as others) has written about the interrelationship between counterfactual reasoning and Modal logic. The relationship between counterfactual reasoning based upon Modal logics may also be exploited in literature or Victorian Studies, painting and poetry.

More recently, counterfactual thinking has gained interest from a psychological perspective. Whereas cognitive psychologists have been interested in studying counterfactuals as a method of explaining memory and learning processes(see Fillenbaum, 1974), social psychologists study cognitive functioning in a larger, social context (Roese & Olson, 1995)Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (1982) pioneered the study of counterfactual thought, showing that people tend to think 'if only' more often about exceptional events than about normal events. Many related tendencies have since been examined, e.g., whether the event is an action or inaction, whether it is controllable,  its place in the temporal order of events, or its causal relation to other events (Mandel, Hilton, & Catellani, 2005).

Early research on counterfactual thinking took the perspective that these kinds of thoughts were indicative of poor coping skills, psychological error or bias, and generally dysfunctional in nature (see Epstude & Roese, 2008). As research developed, a new wave of insight beginning in the 1990’s began taking a functional perspective, believing that counterfactual thinking served as a largely beneficial behavior regulator. Although negative affect and biases arise, the overall benefit is positive for human behavior (Epstude & Roese, 2008).

Directionality
Based on the Theory of Social Comparison, a counter factual may be upward or downward. An upward counterfactual involves comparing the present outcome to a better outcome, telling you how to get ahead e.g., If I took the job, I would have made more money whereas a downward counterfactual compares the present outcome to a worse outcome, informing how to keep things from getting worse in the future e.g., If I went to a different school, I would be making less money (Epstude & Roese, 2008). Upward counterfactuals are more frequent than downward counterfactuals (Roese, 1997).

Additive/ Subtractive
A counterfactual statement may involve the action or inaction of an event that originally took place. An additive statement involves engaging in an event that did not originally occur e.g., I should have taken medicine wheres a subtractive statement involves removing an event that took place e.g.,I should have never started drinking (Epstude & Roese, 2008).

Self vs. Other
This distinction simply refers to whether the counterfactual is about actions of the self e.g., I should have slowed down or someone else’s actions e.g., The other driver should have slowed down. Self counterfactuals are more prevalent than Other counterfactuals (see Roese, 1997).

Theories of Counterfactual Thinking
Daniel Kahneman and Dale Miller (1986) proposed that the cognitive processes that give rise to counterfactual thoughts include memory retrieval processes by which exceptional events recruit their normal counterparts. Ruth M.J. Byrne (2005) proposed that the mental representations and cognitive processes that underlie the imagination of alternatives to reality are similar to those that underlie rational thought, including reasoning from counterfactual conditionals.

In Popular Culture
In the fourth series of the CBS comedy series The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon Cooper and Amy Farrah Fowler develop a game called 'Counterfactuals' which is based on changing one accepted state of the universe and postulating the answer to a question based on such a change. For example: "In a world where Rhinoceroses are domesticated pets, who wins the Second World War?"