1. 25th November 2015, 11.53 pm
Counterfactual Thinking
Before we start to look further into this particular concept of psychology, we must first get
to know and understand the definition of counterfactual thinking. So first of all, counterfactual
thinking is basically a concept in psychology that involves our tendency to imagine other possible
alternatives to certain events that has already occurred, usually the opposite of what really happened
in that particular event. This is also basically a “What if?”, usually associated with negative events.
By utilising the concept of counterfactual thinking, it could actually be used to improve a person’s
mood. However, it could also be the opposite, meaning making a person's mood worse.
Looking further into this concept, there are several types of counterfactual thinking in which
it could be divided into. Such types of counterfactual thinking include the upward and downward
counterfactual thinking, the additive and subtractive thinking and also the self versus other thinking.
Upward counterfactual thinking focuses on how the situation could have been better. The contrary
applies to downward counterfactual thinking. I personally have experiences on this type of
counterfactual thinking. For the upward counterfactual thinking , it basically happened mostly
during my high school days. An example of this would be during exams. The night before I was
hard at work studying for an upcoming Mathematics test. The next day, I took the test, which has 40
objective questions. Now during the test, I would naturally forget about some of the things that I
have learned the night before. So, I got to one question which I was not sure of what the correct
answer was. I was in a dilemma. I was going to go for A as the answer, but I hesitated and thought
for a little longer and finally decided to go with C as the answer. So afterwards, a few days later, we
got back our result for the test. When I received mine, I noticed that I got one question wrong. So I
checked which question it was and turns out it was the question I that I had struggled with. As it
turns out, the correct answer was in fact A, not C. I was frustrated. I could have aced the test if I
picked A instead of C as the answer.
As for downward counterfactual thinking, an event occurred that could be considered a
personal experience. Earlier this year, I received my SPM results along with my other peers. I
waited patiently and nervously for my result and when I finally received it, I was disappointed to
find out that I had only managed to obtain 5As out of a potential 9As for my SPM. I was of course
bummed out by the result but when I thought about it again, I thought that at least I did not get 1 or
2As like some others, which was obviously worse. So in the end I decided to accept it and move on.
While we are still discussing this concept, I would also like to share another experience of
mine that happened most recently towards the end of the first semester of this foundation. This is
involving the subtractive counterfactual thinking, in which we remove an event that took place. As
we were approaching the end of the first semester, it was natural that the amount of assignments
that we had to complete were through the roof. Most of the students would of course be rushing to
complete their assignments as fast as they could. However, it was a different case for me as I was
playing video games for most of that period. It was honestly enjoyable but it would cost me in the
end. So, I ended up doing my assignments the very last minute which was the day before the
submission date. Eventually, we received our final grade for each of the modules we took.
Unfortunately, I ended up getting a very disappointing GPA of 2.71. My parents told me that it was
2. alright since it was my first ever semester in university level. But I also thought to myself that I
could have done way better than I ultimately did if I had never owned a gaming console. That
would make me less distracted in my work and I would easily made the time and effort to achieve
the best results possible and make my family proud. Thankfully, things have taken a turn for the
better in my current semester. I have managed to control the urge to play video games and give my
absolute focus in doing my assignments.
So in the end, counterfactual thinking is something that is normal that all of us have
experienced at least once in our lives. As stated before, it could improve or worsen a person’s mood.
However, counterfactual thinking is not something we should be too concerned with because in the
end, it is all in the past and we cannot change what has already happened.
