Counterfactual thoughts in complex causal domain: content, benefits, and implications for their function

The reliability of previous findings on two crucial aspects of counterfactual thinking, namely the content of counterfactual modifications and their impact on future performance, has been questioned for the frequent use of tasks characterized by simple causal domains, that restrict participants’ possibility to consider a broad range of modifications. To overcome this limitation, we utilized a new experimental task featuring a complex causal domain to investigate such key aspects. The results indicated that participants tend to generate counterfactuals about elements outside their control, especially when presented with a challenging version of the task (Study 1a) and, to a lesser extent, when they receive negative feedback on their performance (Study 1b). Moreover, despite occasional implementations of actions mentioned in controllable counterfactuals, being engaged in counterfactual thinking did not lead to subsequent performance improvements (Study 2). The implications of these findings for the debate on the function of counterfactual thinking are discussed.