# overview
Our research focuses on the social cognitive processes involved in decision-making. Our primary research focuses on counterfactual thinking, which are thoughts of "if only" or "what might have been". Imagining how events might have turned out differently is a common cognitive process, especially after negative events and near misses. Research shows that these counterfactual thoughts can be both dysfunctional and functional, depending on the situation. Our research examines both sides of the counterfactual coin: the bias and the benefits of counterfactual thinking. We are particularly interested in how and why these thoughts occur and their affective, cognitive, and behavioral consequences. Importantly our current projects examine both the basic science behind counterfactual thinking and also how it can be applied to both mental health and health behavior domains. Other research in the lab examines various factors involved in decision-making, with interdisciplinary work examining decision-making and motivation in engineering.

# keywords[]
5204 Cognitive And Computational Psychology

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Attention Deficit Disorder With Hyperactivity

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University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign - (Urbana, Illinois, United States)

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Cornell University - (Ithaca, New York, United States)

# educationAndTraining[].organization.label
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign - (Urbana, Illinois, United States)

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Ethnicity, age, and education influence perceptions of vegetable healthiness and macronutrient content.

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Repetitive Regret, Depression, and Anxiety: Findings from a Nationally Representative Survey

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Schizophrenia involves impairment in the activation of intentions by counterfactual thinking.

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Valence-Dependent Self-Scrutiny in Judgments of Event Impact

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Grandiose narcissism shapes counterfactual thinking (and regret): Direct and indirect evidence

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Beliefs in moral luck: When and why blame hinges on luck.

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The implications of counterfactual mind-sets for the functioning of implementation intentions

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The Role of Counterfactual Thinking on Attitudes Toward ADHD Medication Use.

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Linking Normative and Descriptive Research with Serious Gaming

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Narrowing of attention following food cue exposure in emerging adults: Does impulsivity matter?

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Using a counterfactual-based intervention to change eating intentions: Results from Hispanic and non-Hispanic undergraduate and community samples.

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The Spontaneous Counterfactual Inference Task: Misremembering What Might Have Been.

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Learning from yesterday's mistakes to fix tomorrow's problems: When functional counterfactual thinking and psychological distance collide

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Erratum to manuscript YJESP 3135, Preferences for expressing preferences: People prefer finer evaluative distinctions for liked than disliked objects [J. Exp. Soc. Psychol., 52 (May 2014), 2531]

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An investigation on using serious gaming to study human decision-making in engineering contexts

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Do episodic counterfactual thoughts focus on controllable action?: The role of self-initiation

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When, Why and How do Functional Counterfactual Thoughts Influence Work-related Outcomes?

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A Study on Outcome Framing and Risk Attitude in Engineering Decisions Under Uncertainty

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Power and Categorization: Power Increases the Number and Abstractness of Categories

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A mixed-method analysis of counterfactual thinking, negative event themes, and the transtheoretical model in a community sample of smokers.

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SERIOUS GAMING FOR DESIGN AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING RESEARCH

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It's what's inside that counts: The role of counterfactual content in intention formation

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Studying the Sunk Cost Effect in Engineering Decision Making with Serious Gaming

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Memory and Counterfactual Simulations for Past Wrongdoings Foster Moral Learning and Improvement.

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Serious Gaming for Design and Systems Engineering Research

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Motivated by us But Not by Them: Group Membership Influences the Impact of Counterfactual Thinking on Behavioral Intentions

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If only I wasn't so impulsive: Counterfactual thinking and delay-discounting

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Improving workplace safety by thinking about what might have been: A first look at the role of counterfactual thinking.

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Predicting Student Intention to Wear a Mask to Avoid Contracting COVID-19

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Motivational Differences in Seeking Out Evaluative Categorization Information.

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Neural differences between internal and external episodic counterfactual thoughts.

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Preferences for expressing preferences: People prefer finer evaluative distinctions for liked than disliked objects

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Dispositional optimism weakly predicts upward, rather than downward, counterfactual thinking: A prospective correlational study using episodic recall.

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Free Will, Counterfactual Reflection, and the Meaningfulness of Life Events

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Counterfactual thought in reasoning and performance

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Moving Toward a Brighter Future: The Effects of Desire on Judgments About the Likelihood of Future Events

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From if-then to here and now: Using personalized counterfactuals from past negative experiences to reduce future alcohol consequences.

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Using counterfactual thinking theory to change alcohol protective behavioural strategy use intentions.

# researcherOn[].label
EAGER: Foundations for Combining Normative and Behavioral Research Methodologies to Study Systems Engineering

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National Science Foundation - (Arlington, Virginia, United States)

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Principal-Agent Models of Decision Delegation During Systems Design:  Integrating Modeling and Behavioral Approaches

# researcherOn[].awardedBy.label
National Science Foundation - (Arlington, Virginia, United States)

# streetAddress
Texas A&M University; Psychology; 4235 TAMU