The man who wasn't there:Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation

Life provides an endless stream of social comparison information. Because opportunities to compare with others are so abundant, social comparison theory traditionally assumes that people are selective in their comparison activities and primarily compare with deliberately selected standards. Recent research, however, demonstrates that social comparisons often occur spontaneously, even if no standard is explicitly provided or deliberately selected. We examined whether comparisons are so spontaneous that they are even engaged if people are fleetingly exposed to a potential standard-so fleetingly that they remain unaware of the standard. In three studies, participants were subliminally primed with moderate versus extreme, high versus low standards during self-evaluation. Results demonstrate that self-evaluations are influenced by subliminally presented standards. Specifically, self-evaluations are assimilated towards moderate standards and contrasted away from extreme standards. These self-evaluative consequences of subliminal standards, however, were only obtained if participants engaged in self-reflection during standard exposure. These findings emphasize that social comparisons are truly ubiquitous processes that are engaged even for fleeting exposure to standard information. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.</p

Motivated counterfactual thinking and moral inconsistency: how we use our imaginations to selectively condemn and condone

People selectively enforce their moral principles, excusing wrongdoing when it suits them. We identify an underappreciated source of this moral inconsistency: the ability to imagine counterfactuals, or alternatives to reality. Counterfactual thinking offers three sources of flexibility that people exploit to justify preferred moral conclusions: People can (a) generate counterfactuals with different content (e.g., consider how things could have been better or worse), (b) think about this content using different comparison processes (i.e., focus on how it is similar to or different than reality), and (c) give the result of these processes different weights (i.e., allow counterfactuals more or less influence on moral judgments). These sources of flexibility help people license unethical behavior and can fuel political conflict. Motivated reasoning may be less constrained by facts than previously assumed; people’s capacity to condemn and condone whom they wish may be limited only by their imaginations

Polarized imagination: partisanship influences the direction and consequences of counterfactual thinking

Four studies examine how political partisanship qualifies previously-documented regularities in people’s counterfactual thinking (*N* = 1,186 Democrats and Republicans). First, whereas prior work finds that people generally prefer to think about how things could have been better instead of worse (i.e., entertain counterfactuals in an upward vs. downward direction), Studies 1a–2 find that partisans are more likely to generate and endorse counterfactuals in whichever direction best aligns with their political views. Second, previous research finds that the closer someone comes to causing a negative event, the more blame that person receives; Study 3 finds that this effect is more pronounced among partisans who oppose (vs. support) a leader who “almost” caused a negative event. Thus, partisan reasoning may influence which alternatives to reality people will find most plausible, will be most likely to imagine spontaneously, and will view as sufficient grounds for blame

Pragmatic skills predict online counterfactual comprehension:Evidence from the N400

Counterfactual thought allows people to consider alternative worlds they know to be false. Communicating these thoughts through language poses a social-communicative challenge because listeners typically expect a speaker to produce true utterances, but counterfactuals per definition convey information that is false. Listeners must therefore incorporate overt linguistic cues (subjunctive mood, such as in If I loved you then) in a rapid way to infer the intended counterfactual meaning. The present EEG study focused on the comprehension of such counterfactual antecedents and investigated if pragmatic ability—the ability to apply knowledge of the social-communicative use of language in daily life—predicts the online generation of counterfactual worlds. This yielded two novel findings: (1) Words that are consistent with factual knowledge incur a semantic processing cost, as reflected in larger N400 amplitude, in counterfactual antecedents compared to hypothetical antecedents (If sweets were/are made of sugar). We take this to suggest that counterfactuality is quickly incorporated during language comprehension and reduces online expectations based on factual knowledge. (2) Individual scores on the Autism Quotient Communication subscale modulated this effect, suggesting that individuals who are better at understanding the communicative intentions of other people are more likely to reduce knowledge-based expectations in counterfactuals. These results are the first demonstration of the real-time pragmatic processes involved in creating possible worlds

Regret and counterfactual thinking in the face of inevitability: The case of HIV-positive men

Regret and counterfactual thoughts have been extensively studied in laboratory settings characterized by unlimited future options. Yet, evidence of counterfactual thought and its effects in real-life situations is scarce. The present study demonstrates the influence of regret and counterfactuals on HIV-seropositive individuals (N = 182). Results show that HIV-specific regrets as well as counterfactuals exert negative influence on well-being. However, counterfactuals also increased the likelihood to behave differently in the future by indicating stronger safe-sex intentions. Retrospectively, participants experienced a relatively high level of responsibility for their infection, which increased the experience of regret. Taken together, our results show that regret and counterfactuals have functional and dysfunctional consequences in this health-related context. We discuss the theoretical implications as well as the practical consequences of our findings

Mental time travel:A conceptual overview of social psychological perspectives on a fundamental human capacity

Humans have the unique capacity to mentally travel through time, that is, to reflect on the past, anticipate the future, and construct alternate realities in their minds. The ability to mentally travel through time affects a variety of social psychological topics. Representations of events can differ considerably, depending on the event's temporal location and distance from the present. Current emotions may be influenced by thoughts of future and past times (e.g., nostalgia, hope). Judgments about future events and actions are an important aspect of everyday functioning (e.g., predictions). Indeed, hypothetical thought about counterfactual events that might never come to pass may change the perception and evaluation of present reality. Despite this varied and extensive influence of time on affect, judgment, perception, and behavior, these diverse topics have not been brought together under one common roof. In this overview article and in the special issue on Mental Time Travel, we aim to identify key themes of mental time travel research, point to communalities and differences, and help to integrate various aspects of mental time travel research. Future directions regarding open questions, need for theoretical integration, and further empirical research are discussed. Copyright (C) 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd