title: "If only…": when counterfactual thoughts can reduce illusions of personal authorship.
abstract: Illusions of personal authorship can arise when causation for an event is ambiguous, but people mentally represent an anticipated outcome and then observe a corresponding match in reality. When people do not maintain such high-level outcome representations and focus instead on low-level behavioral representations of concrete actions, illusions of personal authorship can be reduced. One condition that yields specific action plans and thereby moves focus from high-level outcomes to low-level actions is the generation of counterfactual thoughts. Hence, in the present research we tested whether thinking counterfactually can reduce illusory authorship. In line with predictions, generating behavior-regulating counterfactuals reduced susceptibility to the illusion (Study 1). Importantly, this only occurred when people expected to re-encounter the situation to which the counterfactuals applied (Study 2). These findings extend existing research on the boundary conditions of illusory experiences of personal authorship and might hint at a relationship between the illusion and behavior regulation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. L.A.Dannenberg@uva.nl
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Dannenberg
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Förster
authors.forename: Nils B
authors.initials: NB
authors.lastname: Jostmann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D059031:Anticipation, Psychological; D015984:Causality; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007088:Illusions; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D012649:Self Concept