The Relationship Between Counterfactual Thinking And Behavioral Intention

Counterfactual thinking is a thinking activity of denying past events and meanwhile generating a possible hypothesis. The thinking are pervasive in everyday life, especially after misfortune or negative event, they help people learn from experience, effective planning and avoid the repeated fault occurs.Negative events, counterfactuals,behavioral intentions,and behavior are tied together in a feed-back loop that governs ongoing behavior and involves continuing connections in memory. This process consists of three steps: a problem activates counterfactual thinking, counterfactual thinking activates a behavioral intention, and the behavioral intention evokes the corresponding behavior. Prior research has documented the first link, such that negative outcomes activate counterfactual thinking. Much research has also supported the third link, that of the effect of behavioral intentions on behavior. Some research also supports the middle link, the effect of counterfactuals on behavior intentions, but there is an important ambiguity in prior research. According to the previous studies, upward counterfactual thinking provide more prepare functioning than downward counterfactual thinking, which are more help people learn from negligence or failure. Whether upward counterfactual thinking has stronger behavioral intention function than downward counterfactual thinking? Currently there has not relevant empirical research appeared.In this research, using students'daily high-frequency negative events, based on sequential priming paradigm and semantic priming, through E-prime procedure run experiment, exams how counterfactual thinking occurred after negative event effect subsequent behavioral intention judgment on the reaction time, as the promoting effect to explore the relationship of behavioral intentions and thinking direction.This research mainly consists of a questionnaire survey and two experiments: in questionnaires, first of all, through investigations of open-ended questionnaire on college students' daily negative life events and corresponding counterfactual thinking, Secondly, we ordered all collected daily life events, let the students judge on the frequency of the negative events. Finally, we screened high-frequency negative event in daily life as the priming event of the experiment 1. Experiment 1 used within—subjects design with three experimental conditions: control, counterfactual thinking, and no-judgment(baseline), with reaction time(RT)to a subsequent behavioral intention statement serving as the dependent variable. Experiment 2 used within—subjects design, using two conditions were: upward counterfactual thinking, and downward counterfactual thinking. Each experimental conditions including some negative events and an experimental task: behavioral intention judgment with reaction time (RT) to a subsequent behavioral intention statement serving as the dependent variable.The results show:(1) Students'daily high negative events and the corresponding counterfactual thinking focus on personality traits, interpersonal relationships, academic performance, time management, physical condition, economic status, living environment, and the ability to work.(2) Counterfactual thinking adjust goal-directed behavior. Individuals used different thinking on behavioral intentions judgment. On correct behavioral intention judgment, students used counterfactual thinking showed faster than control and no-judgment conditions. On wrong behavioral intention judgment, compared with control and no-judgment conditions, counterfactual thinking condition show delayed behavioral intention judgment.(3) The college students used upward counterfactuals and downward counterfactuals showed significant difference on behavioral intentions judgment. On correct behavioral intention judgment, students used upward counterfactual thinking showed faster than downward counterfactual thinking, on wrong behavioral intentions judgment, compared with upward counterfactual thinking, downward counterfactual thinking condition delayed behavioral intention judgment.