When what happens tomorrow makes today seem meant to be: The meaning making function of counterfactual thinking

The ability to find meaning following traumatic events has been found to be very important for recovery and psychological well-being. The present research utilized a two-stage cognitive account of the search for meaning (e.g., meaning-as-comprehensibility and meaning-as-significance) to demonstrate that counterfactual thinking can serve a meaning-making function that provides explanatory coherence to a series of events. Six studies investigated the meaning-making function of counterfactual thinking and the factors conducive to a retrospective reasoning process. The first set of studies (Studies 1-3) demonstrated that the consideration of counterfactuals of subsequent events that provide meaning-as-significance can imbue prior outcomes and events with meaning-as-comprehensibility, a sense of determinism and purpose. The second set of studies (Studies 4-6) focused on the motivation component of the meaning-making function. Study 4 demonstrated that the meaning-making function of subsequent counterfactuals will be utilized when there is motivation to make sense of a previous event. Study 5 further supported a motivated component of the meaning-making function by demonstrating that subsequent counterfactuals will be used to the extent that they provide a coherent narrative to a sequence of events. Lastly, Study 6 offered further support for a functional interpretation by demonstrating that a meaning threat elicits counterfactual 4 thinking and that increases in counterfactual thinking correspond with increases in fate-based judgments. The results of the current studies offer evidence for a retrospective reasoning process by which counterfactual simulations of subsequent events serve a meaning-making function to provide explanatory coherence to earlier events. The role of motivation and individual differences in the willingness to consider counterfactuals is discussed as well as when counterfactual thinking will lead to perceptions of determinism and free will.