← all facts
emotion
You feel more regret for things that nearly happened.
Counterfactual thinking causes stronger emotional reactions to 'near misses' than to outcomes that were never possible.
Studies of Olympic medalists show that bronze medalists appear happier than silver medalists. The silver winner focuses on the gold they barely missed, while the bronze winner focuses on the possibility of not medaling at all.
The brain creates more pain when it can easily imagine an alternative reality.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich (1995)
- What the check found
- The study (Medvec, Madey, & Gilovich, 1995) is a classic finding in social psychology. The quote accurately summarizes the mechanism of upward versus downward counterfactual thinking demonstrated in the study.
- Confidence
- Well replicated
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.