title: Improving the past and the future: a temporal asymmetry in hypothetical thinking.
abstract: Current views of hypothetical thinking implicitly assume that the content of imaginary thoughts about the past and future should be the same. Two experiments show that, given the same experienced facts of reality, future imagination may differ from past reconstruction. When participants failed a task, their counterfactual thoughts focused on uncontrollable features of their attempt (e.g., "Things would have been better if the allocated time were longer/if I had better logic skills"). But their prefactual thoughts focused on controllable features of their ensuing endeavor (e.g., "Things will be better next time if I concentrate more/if I use another strategy"). This finding suggests that compared with prefactual thinking, counterfactual thinking may be less subject to reality checks and less likely to serve preparatory goals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, University of Trieste, Via Sant’Anastasio 12, 34134 Trieste, Italy. ferrante@units.it
authors.forename: Donatella
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ferrante
authors.forename: Vittorio
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Girotto
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stragà
authors.forename: Clare
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Walsh
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D007092:Imagination; D009042:Motivation; D011340:Problem Solving; D013850:Thinking