Revising Yesterday- The Power of Counterfactuals

“When something bad happens, it shakes your confidence that you understand the world and you can predict what’s going to happen.” Kathleen Vohs

If you have ever looked back on a scenario and imagined all of the things you could have done differently, you’ve experienced a counterfactual thought. Generally, humans engage in this type of behavior after a negative experience because we need to understand why the situation did not go as we planned. In an extreme example, like a fatal car crash, a surviving person may have visions of warning the driver of an obstacle or turning the wheel before the crash. In these scenarios, the bad thing doesn't happen and no one dies.

Replaying scenarios in your head will not change the tragic results of an incident, nor will it ease the resulting pain- so why do we think about counterfactuals over and over again? Esteemed psychologist and University of Minnesota professor Kathleen Vohs explains why humans need to conduct this type of thinking, “When people engage in counterfactual and they simulate other alternate pathways (if I had done this differently than this negative thig may not have occurred) gives them some sense of control, that they kind of understand the world more- and this can help in a psychological sense.”