Temporal Asymmetry: comparing counterfactual and prefactual thoughts

• Grant number: 15/05266-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2015
• End date: December 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Cognitive Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Patrícia Waltz Schelini
• Grantee: Ingrid Corrêa Del Tedesco
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Counterfactual thoughts are thoughts that deal with conditional past events, seen as useful thoughts for modifying future behavior, targeting the adaptability of the individual. On the other hand, pre-factual thoughts, dealing with conditional future events, are seen as having, hypothetically, the same content of counterfactual ones. In recent studies, however, this hypothesis is not confirmed, showing that, in fact, pre-factual thoughts could generate more adaptive behaviors than counterfactual ones. The objective of this study is to replicate the recent research by Ferrante, Girotto, Stragà and Walsh (2012) and compare the results obtained by analyzing the content of the thoughts demonstrated and performance on the same task elaborated in the original study. To do so, it will be presented a game of scrambled words, where each of the 20 participants, aged 20 to 25 years, will have 2 minutes and 15 seconds to complete. After that time, the participant must evaluate his or her own performance on a 7-point scale and make counterfactual or pre-factual sentences, depending on the group to which he or she is assigned randomly. After that, the next should assess performance in a 11-point scale, and finally play again under the same conditions and with the same rules. Since the material is adapted, a pilot study will be held beforehand with five participants to evaluate the effectiveness of the rules of the game and the words chosen for it.