A Study On The Features Of Counterfactual Thinking For High School Students And Its Influence On Memory Bias

Since1982, Kahneman, the Nobel Prize Winner, proposed the concept ofcounterfactual thinking, more and more researchers began to pay attention to thisissue. Kahneman (1982) argued that counterfactual thinking is not the imagination ofthe future, but it refers to the past, that is counterfactual thinking is a hypotheticalthinking activity.There are plenty of research about adult’s counterfactual thinking, meanwhile,only a few reports of high school students. However, high school students need moreattention. Psychological and physiological status of high school students are graduallystabilized after junior middle school. The trend is mainly embodied in intellectualdevelopment level, meanwhile, thinking is the core of intelligence. As ansophisticated and important cognitive activities, counterfactual thinking is a mirror ofthinking. High school is an individual psychological and physiological mature beforefinal stage, at this stage in the formation and development of cognition andpersonality traits will be the direct and profound influence on later in life.139high school students participated in the study, using scenario building methodand self-report method to study the characteristics of spontaneous counterfactualthinking and cued counterfactual thinking. Besides, emotion as an intermediaryvariable through which the direction of counterfactual thinking affects the memorybias. The study revealed the characteristics of counterfactual thinking of high schoolstudents, aimed at widening the content of counterfactual thinking from theperspective of development, and guide the educators to promote the physical andmental health of students so that make a better development and growth.The study draws the following conclusions:(1) The differences of grade in the quantity of spontaneous counterfactualthinking are not significant. Meanwhile, the difference of gender in thequantity of spontaneous counterfactual thinking are notable, the quantities ofinduced counterfactual thinking of female are more than male’s significantly;the differences of grade and gender in the rationality of the spontaneouscounterfactual thinking are not significant; the differences of grade andgender in the upward direction of spontaneous counterfactual thinking arenotable, the third grade of high school students are most of all, and thequantities of female are more than male’s significantly. The differences of gender in the downward direction of spontaneous counterfactual thinking arenot notable, however, the second grade of high school students are more thanother grades significantly.(2) The nature of events influence the directions of counterfactual thinking. Thepositive events lead more downward counterfactual thinking; the negativeevents lead more upward counterfactual thinking.(3) The differences of grade in the quantity of the cued counterfactual thinkingare significant, the quantities of the positive event of second grade are themost, the differences of gender in quantity of positive events are not notable.The differences of gender in quantity of negative events are notable, thequantities of the negative event of third grade are the most. The differences ofgrade and gender in the rationality of the cued counterfactual thinking are notsignificant; the differences of gender in the quantity of upward and downwardcued counterfactual thinking in positive events are not significant. Meanwhile,the differences of gender are notable in negative events, the quantities ofupward cued counterfactual thinking of female are more than male’s, thequantities of downward cued counterfactual thinking of male are more thanfemale’s.(4) Emotion as an intermediary variable through which counterfactual thinkingaffect the memory bias. The error rate of negative emotion words of upwardcounterfactual thinking group is lowest. And the error rate of positive emotionwords of downward counterfactual thinking group is lowest. Themood-congruent effect of memory bias exists.