Abstract

Counterfactual thinking refers to a mental simulation of "What might have been," a cognitive process of once-possible-but-unrealized alternatives to facts, Counterfactuals have been reported to produce intensive emotional experiences, specifically regret. The present research reviewed and tried to integrate the previous inconsistent findings in the view of functional value of counterfactuals. Social psychologists proposed that counterfactuals could be categorized into upward(thoughts of better alternatives) versus downward(thoughts of worse alternatives) and additive versus subtractive. Counterfactual processes are more likely to occur following negative or unexpected rather than positive expected outcome, consistent with the minimization-mobilization hypothesis. Downward counterfactuals serve affective functions(to make one feel better) through contrast effects. Upward counterfactuals serve preparative functions(to prepare and improve performance in the future similar tasks) through causal inferences. Also, upward counterfactuals have been demonstrated in several studies to be followed by success-related attitudes and intentions and actual performance improvement. Furthermore, in terms of regulatory focus, downward counterfactuals were related with the prevention focus(to maintain the current status and upward counterfactuals were related with the promotion focus(to improve the current status). Those findings from numerous studies support that counterfactuals are functional to serve human ongoing motives. In conclusion, applicability and limitation of functional value of counterfactual thinking were discussed.