Counterfactual Thinking and Experiences of Regret

A key philosophy of Beck’s cognitive theory of emotional disorders (Beck, 1967; 1976) relates to emotional disorders, such as anxiety and depression, being maintained through distorted thinking, sometimes known as cognitive distortions (CDs). These CDs can be recognised at surface level as negative automatic thoughts (NATs) that process in an individual’s consciousness. Therefore an individual with an emotional disorder will interpret an event in a negative manner, thus perceiving the situation as a threat or in a detrimental way. These distorted thoughts or NATs are supported by assumptions in the memory known as underlying beliefs (Wells, 1997).

When individuals have previously experienced a saddening, painful past, their desire to retain these past memories allows them to temporarily stay away from the hurtful reality. Their preservation of former events deludes their consciousness as they are unwilling to confront reality and wish to permanently live in a seemingly happy, satisfying illusion. In The Underpainter, Jane Urquhart suggests that when individuals are unwilling to move on from the past, their desire to maintain their past memories causes them to create a long-term irrational illusion since the reality they are currently living strongly contravenes with their illusion. As a result of their unwillingness to embrace with reality, others who unexpectedly are able to perceive

Hindsight is always 20/20. Too many times we see people fail to consider the consequences of their actions, then wish they could go back and stop themselves of ever doing what they did. We can see examples of this from Romeo, Juliet, Elaine, Holden, and others in each of their respective stories. If these characters considered either their short-term consequence, long term, or just were aware of their surroundings, they’d have lived much happier lives. Just take a second, observe what's happening, and think ahead of what might the outcome of your actions will be.

Possible area for future research could be imagine-self perspective taking. Past research has shown that when participants think about how they would personally feel in a situation, then they tend to feel more self-awareness, experience more personal distress, and may even have an increased sense of morality (Batson, et al., 1997; Batson, et al., 2003). Previous work has also shown that the two forms of perspective taking elicited different amount of personal distress (Batson, Early et al., 1997) and different types of cognitions (Davis et al., 2004), and evidence from neuroimaging studies provide further evidence of their distinguishableness in terms of neural activity (Jackson, Brunet, Melzoff & Decety, 2006).

Moreover, although these findings were not consistent with earlier work into the theory of evaluative conditioning such as that shown by Chen et al. (2012) cited in Brace (2014, p.160) and Hollands et al. (2011) cited in The Open University (2014), many factors might be present into why this study did not

Two phenomena- hindsight bias and judgmental overconfidence- illustrate why we can’t rely solely on intuition and common sense.

Choosing a strategy allowed myself to identify those flaws that may make me unsuccessful as mentioned by Pink in his book Drive. According to Pink, motivation involves internal and external factors that we shelter within our lives that drive our path for success and motivate us to do all we know and want to do. I allowed myself to enter this challenge and was precisely aware of the road that I selected to fulfill my destiny, for it is after all that no road bears difficulties. It’s those obstacles of which I have succeeded to overcome that will permit me to be a winner of which we all are. I allowed myself to face such destiny head on and evade the irrational thoughts from others who seems to think that what I am doing may prove too challenging and deter my path for success. I remind them of a famous quote that I read, by the great Malcolm X of which I bear within my heart that states, “There are no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time”. After all, who says a defeat without challenges will not pose problems. J, Hammond, R. Keeney, H. Raiff in their article titled, “ The Hidden Traps of Decision Making”, states that researchers have attempted to discover how the mind function in decision making for nearly a century. Also according to Hammond, Keeney, and Raiff we have a tendency to use our unconscious routine to cope with the complexity that are

Human beings have a biological instinct to resist unusual. Our behaviors are influence through certainty. Not only do we learn through certainty, more significantly we are able to predict its outcome. However there are times when we just don't know why things happen or what to do after it has happened. The focus of this research is to illustrate that people react negatively to events that are uncertain because an outcome cannot be predicted.

Almost everyone uses decision-making on a daily basis. The ability to make decisions is significant because possible outcomes can outweigh losses depending on the decision you choose to make. Decision-making helps to solve everyday problems, but has also been beneficial to solving several scientific issues like Bechera, Damasio, Damasio, and Anderson (1994) did in their study of the Iowa Gambling Task. There were a total of 50 participants in their study, where 44 men and women were from a normal control group and 6 men and women were E.V.R subjects. The subjects are told to select a card from four decks until they are told to stop. The subjects receive money depending on the deck they choose from. After so many turns and receiving money, they

The Human Condition affects decisions after after they are made, because it forces us to look back on the choices that were made and analyzes them. Overthinking decisions that are already made can influence the decision maker to change their view on themselves, once believing themselves to be a good person, and then having that belief abruptly changed. This is evident in After The Dark when the class locked out the Wildcard, and then find out that he truly was the only person who could let them out of the death trap they are now stuck in. They have to watch their only chance of survival’s corpse decompose while they are slowly dying inside the bunker. It becomes apparent that they are affected by the decision they made, and their mindset transforms from that of hopeful

Source G demonstrates how humans rationalize their feelings by creating alternative events or

Every one in the world has probably felt regret from time to time, whether its something small or something huge. In John Steinbeck’s novella, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows multiple examples of regret and what it can do to a person. This is a story of two friends who are seeking a better life and their own place. However, in this search they encounter many problems that prevent them from achieving their dream. The author shows us the many forms of regret and how it affects people.

Based on the type selected – create a statement that represents your specific distorted thinking.

Have you ever wondered what might have been? The proverb “of all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest ones, it might have been”” describes when people have doubts about the choices they have made in life. They often wonder would things be different if they have taken an another route. A person may create differ alternatives to a past situation, that may or may not have occurred. This is called counterfactual thinking. Counterfactual thinking can lead to sadness and regret in an individual because they will never know what the possible outcome of that situation would be. The choice they made may not have turned out the way they have planned. Counterfactual thinking as well as many other psychological concepts such as self- handicapping

The difference between condition one and three is that condition three allowed the participants to self-affirm after finding out their verdict was in disagreement with the other group members. Festinger argues that the lack of choice adds consonant cognitions which reduce the overall amount of dissonance that otherwise would be experienced (Festinger, 1957, 1958; as cited in Matz & Woods, 2005). Additionally, the opportunity to self-affirm strengthens self-worth and thereby reduces the dissonance created when people’s actions threaten their personal integrity (Simon, Greenberg, & Brehm, 1995; as cited in Matz & Woods, 2005). Thus, Matz and Woods hypothesize that dissonance will be reduced by the lack of choice and the opportunity to self-affirm. The results show low levels of discomfort in the lack of choice and self-affirmation conditions, providing an explanation of the kinds of strategies people use to reduce dissonance.