Paper 1

The development of counterfactual thoughts relies on the variability of the situation, as well as the knowledge that different actions could have resulted in alternate outcomes (Alquist, Ainsworth, Baumeister, Daly, & Stillman, 2015). According to Alquist et al., situations that are believed to be highly changeable generate more counterfactual thoughts than events that seem unavoidable. However, ruminating on every conceivable alternative of a situation would take an unlimited amount of time and resources. Instead of allotting so much time and energy on a cognitive task, people tend to narrow down the different scenarios that come to mind according to the degree of controllability of the factors involved (McCloy & Byrne, 2000). For example, the deliberate decisions individuals make that ultimately lead to a certain outcome is considered to be a controllable event, whereas uncontrollable events are unavoidable circumstances, such as traffic jams or natural disasters (McCloy & Byrne, 2000). When mentally forming a scenario different than the one occurred, individuals tend to change controllable rather than uncontrollable events (2000). Therefore, events that are within an individual’s jurisdiction generally receive the brunt of the blame for the resulting situation. Comment by Ryan Winter: Using et al. is fine here, since the author provided all author names the first time. In general, provide all author names EVERY time if there are three or fewer authors. If four or more, give them all the first time and then use et al. thereafter after the first authors last name. If there are more than six authors, you can use et al the first time, but having more than six authors is pretty rare.

In a similar light, a study performed by McCloy and Byrne (2000), discovered that inappropriate events are more often changed through the process of counterfactual thinking than appropriate ones, especially when the outcome of these events was negative. Inappropriate events include the decisions individuals make that are considered to be ‘socially wrong’, whereas appropriate events are ‘socially acceptable’ actions. Due to these results, we can conclude that what McCloy and Byrne consider to be “inappropriate controllable” events, will likely be regarded as highly culpable factors in the outcome of a situation. Comment by Ryan Winter: This citation is a good example of APA formatting, When that word “and” falls outside of the parentheses, use the word “and” and not an ampersand (&) Comment by Ryan Winter: You will notice here that he doesn’t have the dates for these authors. This is okay, since he already gave the date in this paragraph, and the author names the second time around continue from that same analysis.

Another contributing factor to perceived culpability is the extent of knowledge of the actors involved in an event, as well as the intent of their actions (Gilbert, Tenney, Holland, & Spellman, 2015). For example, in the aforementioned scenario, had the driver known that looking away from the road would have caused her to run over the stray cat, the driver would have been more likely to be perceived guilty, even though the actions and the outcome of the situation remained the same. This rationalization is the product of a bottom-up method of thinking in which individuals are able to generate more counterfactual thoughts due to the actor’s knowledge of the outcome (Gilbert et al., 2015). As these authors have noted, the increased development of counterfactual thoughts will in turn attribute more responsibility to the actor, which will ultimately increase perceived blame. But this is not the full picture when it comes to focusing on the role of counterfactual thoughts in altering participant responses. Comment by Ryan Winter: Notice the flow from one paragraph to the next. This author isn’t just listing out studies he read; he is making connections between them and has connections from one paragraph to the next Comment by Ryan Winter: Here, the paper author did another nice job of using proper APA formatting. Since the cite is all within parentheses, he used the “&” properly.

In pursuance of counterfactual thinking and its relationship to perceived blame, we have devised a study that analyzed the extent of culpability people place on a particular factor depending on the preventability of the outcome. We provided participants with one of three scenarios, each of which depicted a variation of the same situation where alternate events lead to different conclusions. In the changeable condition, an actor engaged in a behavior that led to an undesirable outcome (death) that could have been avoided had he acted differently. In the unchangeable condition, the same actor engaged in a behavior that once again led to an undesirable outcome, but here the outcome could not have been avoided if he acted differently. In the neutral condition, the actor engaged in an alternative behavior, but the outcome was still undesirable. We predicted that participants would place more blame on the actor in the changeable condition where the actor could have avoided the undesirable outcome had he behaved differently than in both the unchangeable and neutral conditions, where the actor’s behavior could not be altered. This is because we expected changeable participants to generate more counterfactuals (more statements about how the actor could have behaved) in the changeable condition. Comment by Ryan Winter: Now we get into the heart of this student author’s paper. She had prior information on counterfactual thinking and noted the research that had been done in the area. She then uses that info to help set up her own study idea. That is, she gets more narrow as she reaches the end of the paper (ala the hourglass) Comment by Ryan Winter: She notes the design a bit without going into too much detail about the methods (which she will do in the next paper), but gives the reader a taste as she leads them to the cliffhanger! Comment by Ryan Winter: Now we get to the hypotheses. Aren’t you just dying to see what the study tells you now that you have some idea about his predictions!

References Comment by Ryan Winter: References start on its own page. My advice is to enter a page break in Word so that this will always start at the top of the page. Pay close attention to proper APA formatting here

Alquist, J. L., Ainsworth, S. E., Baumeister, R. F., Daly, M., & Stillman, T. F. (2015). The making of might-have-beens: Effects of free will belief on counterfactual thinking. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(2), 268-283. doi: Comment by Ryan Winter: Notice how this list is in alphabetical order, starting with Alquist and ending with Williams. This is good APA format

10.1177/0146167214563673

Gilbert, E. A., Tenney, E. R., Holland, C. R., & Spellman, B. A. (2015). Counterfactuals, control, and causation: Why knowledgeable people get blamed more. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(5), 643-658. doi: 10.1177/0146167215572137 Comment by Ryan Winter: You will notice that this word is capitalized. This is ok, since it follows a colon

McCloy, R., & Byrne, R. M. J. (2000). Counterfactual thinking about controllable events. Memory & Cognition, 28(6), 1071-1078. doi: 10.3758/BF03209355 Comment by Ryan Winter: Note the form for this peer-reviewed, primary resource. It is good. Author names and their first initial followed by the date. Then the title, with only the first word capitalized. The journal name is italicized, as is the volume number, and the page numbers are good. It also include the DOI

Ruiselová, Z., Prokopčáková, A., & Kresánek, J. (2007). Counterfactual thinking in relation to the personality of women--doctors and nurses. Studia Psychologica, 49(4), 333-339.

Williams, C. W., Lees-Haley, P., & Price, J. R. (1996). The role of counterfactual thinking and causal attribution in accident-related judgments. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(23), 2076-2099. doi: 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1996.tb01789 Comment by Ryan Winter: My advice is to turn on the ruler when using a Word document. Using the ruler, you can make sure that you properly indent all but the first line of each reference (instead of using the space bar or tab) Comment by Ryan Winter: Use the & before listing the name of the last author