section_path: Related concepts and theories/Counterfactual thinking
section_name: Counterfactual thinking
paragraph_text: Counterfactual thinking
  
  Counterfactual thinking involves mental representations of non-actual situations and events, i.e. of what is "contrary to the facts". It is usually conditional: it aims at assessing what would be the case if a certain condition had obtained. In this sense, it tries to answer "What if"-questions. For example, thinking after an accident that one would be dead if one had not used the seatbelt is a form of counterfactual thinking: it assumes, contrary to the facts, that one had not used the seatbelt and tries to assess the result of this state of affairs. In this sense, counterfactual thinking is normally counterfactual only to a small degree since just a few facts are changed, like concerning the seatbelt, while most other facts are kept in place, like that one was driving, one's gender, the laws of physics, etc. When understood in the widest sense, there are forms of counterfactual thinking that do not involve anything contrary to the facts at all. This is the case, for example, when one tries to anticipate what might happen in the future if an uncertain event occurs and this event actually occurs later and brings with it the anticipated consequences. In this wider sense, the term "subjunctive conditional" is sometimes used instead of " counterfactual conditional ". But the paradigmatic cases of counterfactual thinking involve alternatives to past events.
  
  Counterfactual thinking plays an important role since we evaluate the world around us not only by what actually happened but also by what could have happened. Humans have a greater tendency to engage in counterfactual thinking after something bad happened because of some kind of action the agent performed. In this sense, many regrets are associated with counterfactual thinking in which the agent contemplates how a better outcome could have been obtained if only they had acted differently. These cases are known as upward counterfactuals, in contrast to downward counterfactuals, in which the counterfactual scenario is worse than actuality. Upward counterfactual thinking is usually experienced as unpleasant, since it presents the actual circumstances in a bad light. This contrasts with the positive emotions associated with downward counterfactual thinking. But both forms are important since it is possible to learn from them and to adjust one's behavior accordingly to get better results in the future.