Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 Agenda for February 22 Administrative Items/Announcements Missing pages available from Medvec et al article Presentation on Thursday 1 st Exam will be returned on Thursday Paper topics: Already some exciting ones submitted! Time to sign up for RPP Research opportunities available

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 Agenda for February 22, cont. Transition from the Separate Systems Debate Debates About the Effects of Emotion on Judgment and Choice Today’s topic: Counterfactual emotion

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 Counterfactual Emotion A lottery example (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982) The winning number was individuals compare the ticket they hold to the winning number: John holds Mary holds Peter holds All 3 have identical outcomes (losing) but one is much more upset than the others.

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 Counterfactual Emotion, cont. A travel example: Person X misses a plane for which she had a ticket and then later learns that the plane has fatally crashed. Although everyone in the airport who was not on the plane has reason to feel a mixture of sadness and relief, Person X extremely relieved.

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 So What is Counterfactual Emotion? Counterfactual Emotion (def.): When the mental construction of fictitious outcomes (“what might have been”) determines your feelings about actual outcomes. Premise of theories on counterfactual emotion: Objective outcomes do not predict subjective happiness as well as counterfactual comparisons do.

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 Counterfactual Emotion, cont. When is counterfactual thought especially likely to occur ? Any ideas?

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 Counterfactual Emotion, cont. Counterfactual thought occurs: 1. When outcomes deviate from norms or expectancies Example: surprising weather conditions 2. When “close calls” occur, thus making it easy to imagine alternative outcomes. When only one aspect of an event needs to be changed as opposed to some fundamental change. Example: missed plane because of spontaneous decision to go back inside house and pick up files before leaving vs. missed plane because of deliberate decision to change reservation due to inconvenient schedule.

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 3 Ways in Which Counterfactual Thought Influences Emotion 1. What might have been serves as a standard, influencing assessment of actual event. Just making a cutoff elicits downward social comparisons, boosting satisfaction Just missing a cutoff elicits upward social comparisons, decreasing satisfaction (show data) Comparison can be to an alternative outcome (e.g., lottery example) or to another person (e.g., life satisfaction ratings vary as a function of who else is present when making ratings – note studies with disabled individuals and highly-attractive models).

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 No significant difference between actual grades yet a significant difference in satisfaction Satisfaction Medvec & Savitsky (1997): People attach qualitative boundaries to quantitative outcomes

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 Students with an 87 feel more satisfied than students with an 89 Satisfaction B range B+ rangeA- range

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 3 Ways in Which Counterfactual Thought Influences Emotion 2. Counterfactual thinking can suggest specific causal implications, which in turn influence judgments & affective experiences. Different explanations for why the abnormal event occurred will lead to different emotions. Example: Hope follows from a surprising failure if one attributes the cause to transient external circumstances (“I couldn’t sleep the night before the exam because of a party next door”) as opposed to stable personality characteristics (“I’m no good at math”).

Reason, Passion, & Social CognitionWeek 6, Part 1 3 Ways in Which Counterfactual Thought Influences Emotion 3. The act of explaining abnormal outcomes, particularly when it becomes ruminative, can alter affective states. Such thoughts tend to focus on lack of personal efficacy. “If only I hadn’t…” “Why me…” “I wish I had…”