Hazards mean luck: Counterfactual thinking in reports of dangerous situations and careless behavior

It has been shown (Teigen, 1995) that experiences of "luck" in daily life are dependent upon the existence a worse and close hypothetical (counterfactual) outcome, rather than upon a positive evaluation of what actually happened. The present investigation focuses on the inverse relationship, namely whether a situation with a negative outcome close at hand will be perceived as lucky. To test this hypothesis, students were asked to describe dangerous situations (Experiment 1) and examples of careless behavior (Experiment 3) from their own lives, which subsequently were rated by the actors and by peer groups for good and bad luck, attractiveness, and for closeness and attractiveness of the counterfactual outcome. Dangerous situations and episodes involving careless behavior were generally regarded as more lucky than unlucky. Furthermore, degree of good luck was positively correlated with degree of dangerousness and with degree of carelessness. Luck was related to closeness, aversiveness, and (in Experiment 2) to estimated probability of the counterfactual outcome. It is concluded that luck is primarily determined by negative outcomes that did not happen, and thus a frequent by-product of risk taking and risk exposure.     

The making of careers, the making of a discipline: Luck and chance in migrant careers in geriatric medicine

The geriatric specialty, unpopular among most UK born and trained medical graduates, provided an opportunity for career development and achievement for those doctors whose training had been non-standard for a variety of reasons. Migrant doctors who have played a substantive role in the UK National Health Service since its inception made an important contribution to the building of that specialty, at the same time building their own careers. This paper draws on oral history interviews with the UK trained pioneers of geriatric medicine and with South Asian overseas trained doctors who entered the geriatric specialty in the middle decades of the twentieth century. It critically reviews the literature of skilled migration, specifically in terms of ‘brain drain’ and ‘push–pull’, focusing on historical and socio-cognitive communities and emphasizes the contribution of individual narratives of career development in the lives of migrants. Focusing on the use of luck and chance in accounts it suggests that although such terms are indicative of chance upon opportunity, they also suggest a role for agency in career development in contexts which were not auspicious. The outcome, for those interviewed, was regarded positively in career terms, but also had a significant part to play in the development of the career of the specialty of geriatric medicine and in the lives of the marginalized people for whom they developed a service.     

Luck,envy and gratitude: It could have been different

Previous studies have shown that people feel lucky in situations that could easily have turned into something worse. The present investigation was designed to focus more closely on the comparative aspect of luck, using a linguistic approach (Study 1 and 2) as well as self-reports of perceived luck accompanying selected emotional episodes (Study 3). The participants in Study 1 were asked to comment upon the difference between describing a state of affairs as “lucky” vs. “good”. The term “lucky“ was frequently seen to imply a comparison process, sometimes expressing gratitude (“It is lucky I have a family”) and at other times envy (“it is lucky you have a job”). This was confirmed in Study 2 where statements about self and other being lucky or unlucky were rated for implying comparison, gratitude, envy, concern, and impression of speaker. In Study 3, 60 students described situations in which they had felt grateful towards other people as well as towards “life in general”. Questionnaire answers revealed that they also had felt very lucky and had been thinking “it could have been different”. They also produced recollections of envy, which were rated to imply others' good luck and own bad luck, which could easily have been interchanged (“it could have been merdquo;). It is concluded that counterfactual thoughts are decisive for the experiences of luck, gratitude, and envy.     

The Machinations of Luck

Luck is at issue when it is a matter of pure chance that a result of significant positive of negative value ensues for someone. Luck differs from fate, which pivots on an individual's condition, and from fortune, which pivots on an individual's talent and effort. It is by luck that you are rich when you win the lottery, by fortune if your wealth comes from talent and hard work, and by fate if you inherit those millions. On this basis luck lies beyond anyone's rational control. With risk (R) as the probability of failure in a chancy situation and the stake (S) as the difference between a favorable and an unfavorable outcome, luck (L) can be measured as the product of these quantities: L = R × S. The condition of humankind in an uncertain world being as it is, luck cannot be eliminated as a key factor of our existence, be it in cognitive, practical, or ethical regards.     

Strokes of Luck

This essay aims to reorient current theorizing about luck as an aid to our discerning this concept's true philosophical significance. After introducing the literature's leading theories of luck, it presents and defends counterexamples to each of them. It then argues that recent luck theorists’ main target of analysis—the concept of an event's being lucky for a subject—is parasitic on the more fundamental notion of an event's being a stroke of luck for a subject, which thesis serves as at least a partial diagnosis of the leading theories’ failure. Next, it develops an analysis of strokes of luck that utilizes insights from the recent luck literature. Finally, having set out a comprehensive new analysis of luck—the Enriched Strokes Account of lucky events—the essay revisits the initial counterexamples to the literature's leading theories and argues that the Enriched Strokes Account properly handles all of them.     

Constitutive Luck

‘Constitutive luck’ refers to luck that affects the sort of person one is. This article demonstrates that it is a philosophically troubling sort of luck, causing problems in, at least, ethics and political philosophy. Some, notably Susan Hurley, Nicholas Rescher, and Daniel Statman, have argued that such trouble can be avoided, by pointing out that the notion of constitutive luck is incoherent. The article examines this claim by means of a discussion of the idea of luck in general, settling on an account of luck in terms of the notions of chance, value, and (lack of) control. This account is then used to show that the notion of constitutive luck is not incoherent. We are stuck with the problems made by constitutive luck.     

反事实思维与后悔的关系：调节模式的调节作用

已有研究表明反事实思维越多则后悔越强烈。本研究试图通过两项实验分别探讨特质性、情境性调节模式是否影响反事实思维与后悔之间的关系。结果表明：特质性调节模式及情境性调节模式均对反事实思维与后悔之间的关系具有调节作用,具体来说,针对情境性调节模式而言,运动模式下加法式思维越多则后悔越轻微,评估模式下加法式思维越多则后悔越强烈;针对特质性调节模式而言,运动模式下加法式思维越多则后悔越轻微。     

Counterfactual thinking about one’s birth enhances well-being judgments

Previous research demonstrates that thinking counterfactually about life experiences facilitates meaning making about those events. Two studies extend this work into the well-being domain by examining the effects of writing factually or counterfactually about one’s birth on well-being. In Study 1, participants (N?=?252) were randomly assigned to write factually or counterfactually about their births or the election of Barack Obama and then completed measures of meaning in life and life satisfaction. Writing counterfactually about one’s birth led to higher evaluations of life relative to all other groups. In Study 2, (N?=?98) participants wrote factually or counterfactually about their births and again completed well-being measures. Fate attributions, probability estimates, and feelings of luck were explored as potential mediators. The effect on well-being from Study 1 replicated, but was not driven by any of the measured variables. Implications for existential psychology and well-being research are discussed.     

Getting Luck Properly Under Control

This article proposes a new account of luck and how luck impacts attributions of credit for agents' actions. It proposes an analogy with the expected value of a series of wagers and argues that luck is the difference between actual outcomes and expected value. The upshot of the argument is that when considering the interplay of intention, chance, outcomes, skill, and actions, we ought to be more parsimonious in our attributions of credit when exercising a skill and obtaining successful outcomes, and more generous in our attributions of credit when exercising a skill but obtaining unsuccessful outcomes. Furthermore, the article argues that when agents skillfully perform an action, they deserve the same amount of credit whether their action is successful or unsuccessful in achieving the goal.     

You Make Your Own Luck

This essay takes up two questions. First, what does it mean to say that someone creates her own luck? At least colloquially speaking, luck is conceived as something out of an agent's control. So how could an agent increase or decrease the likelihood that she'll be lucky? Building on some recent work on the metaphysics of luck, the essay argues that there is a sense in which agents can create their own luck because people with more skill tend to have more opportunities to benefit from luck. Second, what implications does this conception of luck have for related topics such as how we evaluate performances (like shooting an arrow), including coming to know something? The ubiquitous presence of luck in our actions is often underappreciated. The essay argues that when we combine an expected outcomes view of luck with a counterfactual view of causation, the distinction between environmental and intervening veritic luck seems to disappear. We need a more nuanced view of how luck sometimes undermines credit for success in agents' actions. The upshot of this view is that while luck may undermine the creditworthiness of an agent's success, it only partially undermines creditworthiness.     

Salience,Imagination, and Moral Luck

One key desideratum of a theory of blame is that it be able to explain why we typically have differing blaming responses in cases involving significant degrees of luck. T.M. Scanlon has proposed a relational account of blame, and he has argued that his account succeeds in this regard and that this success makes his view preferable to reactive attitude accounts of blame. In this paper, I aim to show that Scanlon's view is open to a different kind of luck-based objection. I then offer a way of understanding moral luck cases which allows for a plausible explanation of our differential blaming responses by appealing to the salience of certain relevant features of the action in question.     

The reward value of near-miss situations

Svartdal, F. (2011). The reward value of near‐miss situations. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology52, 209–217. What is a “positive” outcome? Clearly, obtaining something attractive is regarded as positive, but so is avoiding something negative. The present paper compared these two types of situations in scenario‐type evaluations. Participants rated positive (P), avoiding negative (AN), and negative (N) outcomes in terms of luck (Experiment 1) and overall positive/negative evaluations (Experiments 2 and 3). The results demonstrated that evaluations of P and AN outcomes were judged as equally positive, but the emotional basis for these evaluations was very different: The feeling of relief was the dominating emotion in AN situations, whereas joy was the dominating emotion in P situations. Overall, these results indicate that avoidance‐induced reward value may be important as a motivating factor in cognition and action.     

When bonuses backfire: an inaction inertia analysis of procrastination induced by a missed opportunity

An inaction inertia analysis of procrastination was used to generate the prediction that using bonuses to encourage early task completion will have two opposing effects, encouraging early task completion by some but also inducing procrastination for those who miss the bonus. Study 1 showed that the addition of bonuses for early completion produced both of these effects and also led to overall task completion rates that were either equal to (large bonus) or actually less than (medium and small bonuses) those obtained by simply establishing a completion deadline with no bonus. In Study 2, a lottery methodology was used to manipulate the size of a missed bonus for all participants. Even under these conditions of reduced personal responsibility the larger missed bonus led to increased procrastination as predicted by the inaction inertia analysis. Possible mediating processes based on anticipated regret and perceived fairness were discussed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

“心理距离“在后悔加工中作用的初步研究

采用改编的虚构故事,通过240名大学生课堂实验的形式,对假设思维中涉及的最佳状态和理想状态之间的心理距离是影响后悔强度的主要因素的假设进行检验。结果部分支持了该假设。同时表明,心理距离外的其它因素,如“孤岛效应”也对后悔加工有较大的影响。另外,对后悔的后加工观进行了检验,为后悔的研究从实验室转向现实生活辅平了道路。     

3～5岁幼儿反事实思维的发展研究

该研究采用结果和前提反事实推理任务,选取58名3-5岁幼儿为被试,考察了其反事实思维能力的发展。结果表明:1.3岁儿童在结果反事实推理中的得分显著低于4岁和5岁儿童,而4岁和5岁儿童的得分并不存在显著差异;2.幼儿的前提反事实推理因结构和方向不同而表现出不同的年龄变化趋势;3.幼儿产生的上行和下行反事实论断之间不存在显著差异。如成人一样,幼儿较少产生减法反事实。     

大学生心理控制源与内疚感和羞耻感对反事实思维的影响

研究以128名大学生为研究对象,采用2 (心理控制源: 外控型、内控型)×2 (自我道德感: 内疚感、羞耻感) 两因素被试间实验设计,考察了外控和内控大学生在内疚感和羞耻感两种不同的自我道德情感下反事实思维内容的差异。结果表明:(1) 心理控制源对大学生反事实思维不同内容的诱发具有重要的影响:外控者更倾向于产生行为和情境导向的反事实思维,而内控者更倾向于产生自我导向的反事实思维。内疚感和羞耻感对大学生反事实思维内容的产生没有直接的影响;(2) 反事实思维内容的产生受到了心理控制源与内疚感和羞耻感两种自我道德情感的交互影响:外控者在羞耻感的启动条件下比在内疚感的启动条件下表现出了更多的行为和情境导向的反事实思维,而内控者在内疚感的启动条件下比在羞耻感的条件下表现出了更多的自我导向的反事实思维。研究结果有助于解释以中西方不同被试而得出的内疚感和羞耻感与反事实思维关系的矛盾结论。     

反事实思维两大理论：范例说和目标－指向说

反事实思维是个体对不真实的条件或可能性进行替换的一种思维过程。该文通过综合国外许多研究者的研究成果,探讨了反事实思维的定义、分类以及反事实思维的两大理论：范例说和目标－指向说。范例说认为反事实思维的激发是自动化过程,影响反事实思维产生的因素包括：正常性、结果的效价、与替代结果的接近性、前提的突变性和前提的突出性。目标－指向说则认为反事实思维的激发过程同样受目标、情绪控制、态度等认知因素的影响     

Regrets in the East and West: Role of intrapersonal versus interpersonal norms

Regrets are stronger following atypical than following normal behaviour. No studies have tested this effect for both intrapersonal normality (consistency within a person) and interpersonal normality (consistency between people) simultaneously. The present research examined whether the impact of violating the two kinds of normality on regret varies across cultures, using a manipulation of mutability crossed with that of norm violation. Among Korean participants (but not Americans) the impacts of mutability on regret were stronger when the intrapersonal rather than the interpersonal norm was violated, which was interpreted in terms of the greater collectivist emphasis in Korea than in the USA.     

“值”在中国人的假设思维中的角色

先前的研究表明, 东西方在假设思维上不存在差异, 或者只是存在于特殊范围内(domain-specific)。本文在中国人的“值”的概念基础上界定一个存在于东西方的假设思维上的新差异。实验1显示了在假设思维概念里, 中国人的“值”是由决策理由的大小和后果的严重程度大小决定的, 同时“值”被证实是中国人假设思维的中介变量。实验2比较了中、法两国被试的假设思维, 结果再次证明了中国被试的假设思维是由“值”概念决定, 相比而言法国被试是由“成本－收益”概念决定的。