ABSTRACT
We use our imagination in many ways, for example when we think about what might have been, that is, when we think counterfactually, especially when we compare a situation to an imaginary alternative in which events turned out differently. For example, if your friend is seriously injured in a car crash, you might mull over the events that led to the tragic outcome and wish, “If only she hadn’t been speeding”. Thinking about imaginary alternatives plays an important role in many aspects of cognition, for example, in establishing causal relations by considering what might happen in cases where the cause does not occur, and in carrying out the search for counterexamples in deductive reasoning by considering that a putative conclusion is not the case and imagining situations consistent with this possibility (e.g. Chisholm, 1946; Ginsberg, 1986; Hofstadter, 1985; Isard, 1974; Johnson-Laird, 1986; McGill & Klein, 1993; Wells & Gavanski, 1989). Counterfactual thinking is also one of the interfaces between cognition and emotion, underlying feelings of regret and disappointment, as well as hope and relief (e.g. Johnson, 1986; Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Landman, 1987). Arguably, you could not experience an emotion such as regret if you did not keep in mind the way a situation turned out and did not compare it to an imaginary alternative in which events turned out differently. One key issue in understanding counterfactual thinking is to discover how people generate imaginary alternatives to a situation and in this chapter I will try to sketch part of an answer to this question.
