COUNTERFACTUAL THINKING AND SOCIAL-PERCEPTION - THINKING ABOUT WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN

The chapter examines the influence of norms dominated by postcomputed representations on perceptions of social events. The aim is to simply encourage consideration of the role that counterfactual thinking plays in the process. To accomplish this, show that people's reactions to social events that evoke the same precomputed representations will vary if those events evoke different postcomputed counterfactual representations. The chapter focuses on three factors that influence the relation between the target event and the postcomputed representations it evokes. These factors are (1) the ease with which actions leading to the event can be undone mentally, (2) the ease with which the event itself can be undone mentally, and (3) the ease with which the event can be replicated mentally. Reality is also compared to the postcomputed representations that are neither consciously nor unconsciously held prior to an event but are generated post hoc by the event itself. © 1990, Academic Press Inc.