Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Copyrighl 1996 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.

1996, VoL 7 t, No. 3, 450--463 0022-3514/96/$3.00

Counterfactual Thinking and Ascriptions of Cause and Preventability

D a v i d R . M a n d e l a n d D a r r i n R. L e h m a n
University of British Columbia

Research suggests that counterfactuals (i.e., thoughts of how things might have been different) play
an important role in determining the perceived cause of a target outcome. Results from 3 scenario
studies indicate that counterfactual content overlapped primarily with thoughts of how an outcome
might have been prevented (preventability ascriptions) rather than with thoughts of how it might
have been caused (causal ascriptions). Counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions focused
mainly on controllable antecedents, whereas causal ascriptions focused mainly on antecedents that
covaried with the target outcome over a focal set of instances. Contrary to current theorizing, causal
ascriptions were unrelated to counterfactual content (Study 3). Results indicate that the primary
criterion used to recruit causal ascriptions (covariation) differsfrom that used to recruit counterfac-
tuals (controllability).

People often think about what might or could have been if
only things had been slightly different than they were (see, e.g.,
Hofstadter, 1979, 1985; Kahneman & Miller, 1986; and Steiner,
1975 ). These thoughts, called counterfactuals, suggest possible
worlds and ways in which they might have been realized. Count-
erfactual thinking thus involves imagining alternatives to one
or more features of a perceived event. Over the past decade,
several researchers (Einhorn & Hogarth, 1986; Hilton, 1990;
Hilton & Slugoski, 1986; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982; Lipe,
1991 ; McGill, 1989, 1990; McGiil & Klein, 1993, 1995; Roese
& Oison, 1995a; Wells & Gavanski, 1989) have suggested that
people use counterfactual thinking in the process of ascribing
causes to target outcomes (viz., causal ascription). These psy-
chological accounts have much in common with each other, and
each owes greatly to Mackie's ( 1974; as well as Hart & Honort's
[ 1959 ]) philosophical account of causation.
C o u n t e r f a c t u a l s as Tests o f Necessary
a n d Sufficient C a u s a t i o n
Mackie (1974) argued that people construct counterfactuals
to test whether a particular antecedent was in fhct a cause of a
target outcome. Specifically, in testing whether a hypothesized
cause (C) is a necessary cause of target effect (E), one would
construct a counterfactual in which C is negated (denoted
C). The easier it is to imagine C followed by E (i.e., the
David R. Mandeland Darrin R. Lehman, Department of Psychology,
University of British Columbia, Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada,
This research was supported in part by doctoral fellowshipsfrom the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
(NSERC) and the Social Sciencesand Humanities Research Council of
Canada (SSHRC) and by SSHRC Research Grant 410-93-1295 and
NSERC Research Grant 95-3054. We thank Neal Roese and Jim Sher-
man for helpful comments on a draft of this article and Nancy Dwor-
nick and Sarah Smith for their assistance with this research.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to David
R. Mandel, who is now at the Department of Psychology, Stanford Uni-
versity, Stanford, California 94305-2130.
negation or "undoing" of the target effect), the stronger one's
belief should be that C was a necessary cause of E. To use a well-
known example from Kahneman and Tversky (1982), if Mr.
Jones was in a car accident, he might imagine having taken a
different route (especially if the route he took was unusual;
Kahneman & Miller, 1986). To the extent that imagining doing
so also leads Jones to imagine not having been in the car acci-
dent, he may be especially likely to view his decision to take that
unusual route as a cause of his accident.
Mackie's (1974) notion that people use counterfactuals to
infer necessary causes represents an extension of Mill's ( 1843/
1973) method of difference to events that can be simulated in
psychological space. Following Mill's method of difference, sufl-
port for a necessary C is strengthened if C is the case, then E
is also true. Logically, counterfactuat evidence that C implies
E provides indirect support for the belief that E implies C (i.e.,
C was necessary for E). This form of causal reasoning amounts
to a modus tollens argument (Copi, 1986; Wason, I966) in
which the negation of an implicate (in this case, C) leads to the
valid conclusion that the implicans (in this case, E) must also
be negated.
Logically, counterfactual tests of hypothesized sufficient
causes are also possible (Mackie, 1974). Accordingly, one could
construct a counterfactual in which E is negated. The easier it
is to imagine that negating E would have undone C as well, the
stronger one's belief should be that C was a sufficient cause of E.
For example, Jones might think, "If only I hadn't gotten into
this accident, I wouldn't have been in the path of a drunk
driver." Once again, a modus totlens argument is constructed,
but this time the hypothesized rule is that C implies E (i.e., C is
a sufficient cause of E). Thus, following modus tollens logic, the
J An implicate is an event whose occurrence is implied by the occur-
rence of another event, called the implicans. The terms antecedent and
consequent are often used synonymously for the terms implicans and
implicate, respectively.However,because an implicans may not be tem-
porally antecedent to an implicate, we use the unambiguous terms ( i.e.,
implicans and implicate) when referring to logical implication and the
terms antecedent and consequent when referring to temporal order.

450
 COUNTERFACTUALS, CAUSES, AND PREVENTABILITY
negation of E implies the valid conclusion that C must also not
have occurred.
Although counterfactual tests of necessary and sufficient
causes share the same valid modus tollens logic, they do not
share the same degree of psychological plausibility. Most theo-
rists and laypersons alike would probably agree that the type of
counterfactuals required to test hypothesized sufficient causes
are exceedingly rare. That is, people hardly ever imagine conse-
quent events having implications for antecedent events, such as
"'if only E had not occurred, then C would also not have
occurred,"
The most likely reason for this asymmetry in counterfactual
constructions is that people tend to think about events unfold-
ing forward rather than backward in time. People, therefore,
prefer to think of antecedents as having logical implications for
consequents (Tversky & Kahneman, 1980), despite the fact
that logical implication is not temporally bound (see Footnote
1 ). Whereas invoking a counterfactual criterion for tests of nec-
essary cause accomplishes congruence between antecedent and
implicans and between consequent and implicate, invoking a
counterfactual criterion for tests of sufficient cause induces in-
congruence between temporal order and logical order. Perhaps
this is why, in the literature on causal reasoning (e.g., Einhorn &
Hogarth, 1986; Hilton, 1990; Hilton & Slugoski, 1986; McGill,
1989, 1990; McGill & Klein, 1993, t995), tests of necessity are
framed as counterfactual conditional questions (i.e., if C, then
E?), whereas tests of sufficiency are framed as contrastive but
explicitly nonimplicative questions (i.e., what distinguishes E
cases from E cases?). At best, then; everyday counterfactual
(if only . . . ) thinking can aid in ascriptions about necessary
causes but not in ascriptions about sufficient causes. This limi-
tation poses a problem for theorists (e.g., Lipe, 1991 ) who argue
that causal ascriptions depend heavily on counterfactual think-
ing because, in general, people think about causes in terms of
necessity and sufficiency, and perhaps even more in terms of the
latter (Hart & HonorS, 1959; Hilton, 1990; Hilton & Jaspars,
1987; Kanouse, 1972; Mandel, 1995; Nisbett & Ross, 1980).
Another problem with the notion that counterfactual think-
ing represents a causal test strategy stems from the fact that
counterfactuals often have a confirmatory rather than testlike
quality. As noted earlier, psychological literature on counterfac-
tual thinking (for reviews, see Roese & Olson, 1995a; and Sher-
man & McConnell, 1995 ) and causal reasoning (e.g., Einhorn
& Hogarth, 1986; Hilton, 1990; Lipe, 1991; McGill, 1989,
1990; McGill & Klein, 1993, 1995) suggests that counterfactu-
als represent, among other things, a method for testing the plau-
sibility of various hypothesized causes. From this perspective,
counterfactual thinking is a negative hypothesis test strate-
gy (see Klayman & Ha, 1987)--a method for answering the
counterfactual conditional question, if C, then still E? in hind-
~
sight. That is, counterfactual thinking assesses P(EI C ) - - t h e
conditional probability of the target effect still occurring, given
the causal candidate did not occur. If counterfactual thinking
really does test for the necessity of various causal candidates,
one would expect considerable variability in the test results.
That is, a sizable proportion of the counterfactuals that people
construct should n o t undo the target outcome. On the contrary,
counterfactuals usually are experienced as compelling possibil-
451
ities from the moment they become the focus of attention
(Hofstadter, 1979). They have more of the quality of a confir-
mation than of a test.
This is not to say that counterfactuals always successfully
undo a target outcome. Indeed, people sometimes have count-
erfactual thoughts that change an antecedent but leave the out-
come as it was perceived to have occurred (Roese & Olson,
1995a). In covariational terms, these counterfactuals represent
c-cell instances (i.e., antecedent C is negated but effect E still
occurs; ~C n E), which provide disconfirmatory information
about the necessity of a causal relation. Much more common,
however, are counterfactuals that undo a target outcome by
changing an antecedent factor. These counterfactualsrepresent
d-cell instances ( i.e., C is negated, and E is undone; C A E)
that provide confirmatory information about the necessity of a
causal relation when compared with the c cell. Therefore, even
in theory, the notion that counterfactual thinking serves as a
method for testing the plausibility of causal hypotheses faces
some serious limitations. Next, we summarize the work of in-
vestigators who have examined the link between counterfactual
and causal thinking.
Empirical Research
Only two studies ( N'gbala & Branscombe, 1995; Wells & Ga-
vanski, 1989) have addressed the relation between counterfac-
tual availability and causal ascriptions, and these two studies
have provided contradictory results. Wells and Gavanski found
support for the notion that counterfactuat thinking influences
causal ascriptions. In their second study, for example, partici-
pants read a scenario in which a cab driver refused the fare of a
paraplegic couple. The couple decided to drive their own spe-
cially equipped car, and they were subsequently killed when the
bridge that they drove over collapsed. In the undoing condition,
the cab driver reached the bridge 15 min before the couple and
made it across safely. In the nonundoing condition, the cab
driver also drove off the collapsed bridge. After reading the vi-
gnette, participants listed four ways that the couple's death
could have been avoided and rated the extent to which the cab
driver's refusal to take the couple caused their deaths. Wells and
Gavanski found that the cab driver's refusal to accept the cou-
ple's fare was mentioned more often as a way of avoiding the
couple's death and was viewed as more causal in the undoing
condition than in the nonundoing condition. More important,
they demonstrated that participants who undid the cab driver's
decision rated the causal role of the cab driver's decision more
strongly.
N'gbala and Branscombe ( 1995 ), however, did not replicate
these basic findings. In their second experiment, for example,
participants read a vignette in which a cab driver did not take
the fare of a handicapped couple because either he had made a
mistake and picked up another couple on the same street
(controllable) or because his car broke down (uncontrollable).
The couple then took another cab that crashed off the bridge
either because the second cab driver was drunk (controllable)
or because the bridge collapsed (uncontrollable). Participants
generated a single counterfactual statement (the outcome could
have been different if o n l y . . . ) and then rated the extent to
which the first driver, the second driver, the bridge, and the cou-
452
pie were responsible, blameworthy, and causally implicated.
N'gbala and Branscombe combined these three ratings into a
single measure of fault and found that, although significantly
more participants mutated the first driver's actions than the sec-
ond driver's actions or the collapsed bridge, fault was most
strongly ascribed to either the second driver (when he was
drunk) or the collapsed bridge. In contrast to Wells and Gavan-
ski (1989), N'gbala and Branscombe did not find that partici-
pants who mutated a particular event rated that event as more
at fault.
N'gbala and Branscombe (1995) suggested that the first cab
driver's actions represented the necessary cause, whereas the
second driver's actions or the collapsed bridge represented the
sufficient cause in the scenario. Accordingly, they argued that
people focus primarily on necessary causes when mutating
events but that they focus primarily on sufficient causes when
ascribing fault. It is unclear, however, whether participants
viewed the second driver's actions or the collapsed bridge as
sufficient for the outcome. That is, neither the second driver's
actions nor the collapsed bridge, by themselves, were sufficient
to enable the outcome (e.g., iftbe first driver had taken the cou-
ple's fare, then the couple may have been alright, even though
the second driver was drunk or the bridge collapsed). Moreover,
if one considers what was conditionally necessary under the cir-
cumstances (see Mackie, 1974), the actions of the second driver
(when drunk) or the collapsed bridge may be viewed as just as
necessary as the first driver's actions.
Scope o f the R e s e a r c h
Similar to the studies by both Wells and Gavanski (1989) and
N'gbala and Branscombe (1995), our notions about the re-
lations between counterfactuals and preventability and causal
ascriptions focus more specifically on upward counterfactuals
that undo negative outcomes. The emphasis on cognitive reac-
tions to negative outcomes is driven in part by findings which
indicate that, in comparison with positive or neutral events,
negative events elicit more counterfactual thinking (e.g., Bon-
inger, Gleicher, & Strathman, 1994; Gavanski & Wells, 1989;
Gieicher et al., 1990; J. T. Johnson, 1986; Kahneman & Miller,
1986; Landman, 1987; but see Markman, Gavanski, Sherman,
& McMullen, 1993; and Roese & Olson, 1993, 1995b, for nota-
ble counterexamples) and more attributional thinking (see
Peeters & Czapinski, 1990; Taylor, 1991; and Weiner, 1985, for
reviews). Because negative events can significantly impede psy-
chological well-being, there may also be important practical ad-
vantages to understanding how people process negative-out-
come information. Because only upward counterfactuals (i.e.,
thoughts that improve on reality; Markman et al., 1993) can
mentally restore negative outcomes to positive or neutral states,
we focus exclusively on this type ofcounterfactual thinking.
D i s t i n g u i s h i n g Between C a u s a l i t y a n d P r e v e n t a b i l i t y
In contrast to both Wells and Gavanski (1989) and N'gbala
and Branscombe ( 1995 ), we provide an account of the relation
between counterfactual thinking and causal ascription that is
based on the distinction between facilitative and inhibitory
causes ( Kelley, 1971 a, 1973 ). Facilitative causes bring about or
MANDEL AND LEHMAN
enable target outcomes and are what people generally mean
when they refer to causes ( Mandel, 1995 ). In contrast, inhibi-
tory causes prevent target outcomes. In line with everyday lan-
guage, we refer to facilitative causes simply as causes and inhib-
itory causes as preventors (keeping in mind that preventors are
causes in the broader sense of the term).
Just as everyday counterfactuals (i.e., counterfactuals in
which the implicans is an event that is antecedent to a target
outcome) have implications for hypotheses about necessary
causes, they also have implications for hypotheses about suffi-
cient preventors. Logically, the negation of any necessary cause
may be reinterpreted as a sufficient preventor and vice versa.
For example, consider the relation between oxygen and fire. Ox-
ygen is a necessary cause of fire because its absence implies the
absence of fire. This is logically identical to stating that the ab-
sence of oxygen is sufficient to prevent fire.
In psychological terms, however, causal and preventability as-
criptions may focus on different events. That is, although ante-
cedent X may be treated as a good causal candidate, X (i.e.,
the negation of X ) may be viewed as a poor preventability can-
d~date. Similarly, although Y may be viewed as a good prevent-
ability candidate, Y may be viewed as an implausible causal
candidate. This is not to say that preventability ascriptions can-
not focus on the negation of perceived causes or that causal as-
criptions cannot focus on foregone preventors. Indeed, the
findings of Wells and Gavanski (1989) indicate that sometimes
causal ascriptions overlap considerably with counterfactual pre-
ventability ascriptions.
Nevertheless, we believe that the perception of preventors as
negated causes, or the perception of causes as counterfaetual
preventors, is the exception rather than the rule. Moreover, we
anticipate that when people generate counterfactuals, they often
try to simulate ways in which an outcome could have been pre-
vented, without necessarily mutating the hypothesized cause of
the outcome. Thus, in the process of mentally undoing focal
outcomes, counterfactual thinking may often represent the post
hoc cognitive sense that preventative actions might have been
taken rather than the post hoc cognitive negating of hypothe-
sized causes.
This interpretation is consistent with Kahneman and Varey's
(1990) notion of competitive causation but extends beyond
their focus on close counterfactuals (i.e., thoughts about what
almost happened) to conditional counterfactuals as well. In line
with the classic social psychological works of Lewin (1936) and
Heider (1958), Kahneman and Varey (1990) argued that peo-
ple perceive target outcomes as the result of the competition
between opposing forces. The notion that counterfactuals are
aligned with post hoc preventability ascriptions suggests that
people often think about competitive causation, even in cases
where counterfactual outcomes did not just nearly occur. We
suggest that even when a counterfactual outcome is not sup-
ported by a suddenly disconfirmed propensity (i.e., the percep-
tion of a dynamic shift in the probability of an outcome) but
only by a disconfirmed disposition (i.e., the perception of the
prior probability of an outcome), people still tend to think
about preventative actions that they (or another focal person)
might have taken that would have disabled, overtaken, or other-
wise competed with the perceived causes of an unwanted
outcome.
 COUNTERFACTUALS, CAUSES, AND PREVENTABILITY
Note that the distinction between negating necessary causes
and adding possible preventors is unrelated conceptually to the
distinction between additive and subtractive counterfactuals
(Roese & Olson, 1993; cf. Dunning & Parpal, 1989, who also
use the terms additive and subtractive to refer to frames of
reference). That is, both perceived causes and perceived pre-
ventors may focus on either the addition or the subtraction of
events. In counterfactual terms, an omitted event may be men-
tally added and a committed event may be mentally subtracted.
We have no reason to believe that distinctions between causes
and preventors depend on whether a target antecedent repre-
sents an omission or a commission. Indeed, as Davis, Lehman,
Wortman, Silver, and Thompson ( 1995 ) noted, the same event
may often be stated in either additive or subtractive terms (e.g.,
"If only I had stayed awake" vs. "If only I had not fallen asleep")
with no apparent change in meaning.
Controllability and Covariational Criteria
We expect that people use different criteria to arrive at causal
and preventability ascriptions. Causal ascriptions are likely
guided by a covariational criterion, whereas preventability as-
criptions, as well as counterfactuals, are likely guided by a con-
trollability criterion. In the former case, the selection of causal
candidates depends on the degree to which they covary with the
target outcome. We do not assume, however, that covariational
information need be explicit or data-driven. That is, world
knowledge that provides theory-driven, covariational informa-
tion can be used to arrive at causal ascriptions. For example,
most people know that reckless driving is directly related to the
likelihood of being in a car accident. People can then use this
covariational knowledge in reasoning about the cause of a spe-
cific car accident involving a reckless driver.
In contrast, we expect that the selection of preventability as-
criptions depends on the factors that are perceived to be con-
trollable from a focal person's point of view. Returning to the
previous example, if Jones, while driving home by an unusual
route, is hit by a reckless teenager, he then might be inclined to
view the teenager's reckless driving as the cause of his accident,
despite the fact that he might also think counterfactually that,
if he had taken his normal route home, then the accident would
have been prevented. Unlike the teenager's reckless driving,
Jones's choice of route was under his own control. Jones's
choice of route, however, is unlikely to covary with the occur-
rence of accidents. In contrast, reckless driving is likely per-
ceived as covarying with accident frequency. In our view, Jones
is likely to focus on the teenager's reckless driving (an uncon-
trollable covarying factor) in ascribing a cause to the accident,
and he should be likely to focus on his choice of route (a con-
trollable, noncovarying factor) or on other controllable factors
when thinking about how the accident could have been pre-
vented. Of course, if an antecedent is both controllable and co-
varying, then people may focus on the same event in both their
causal and preventability ascriptions (e.g., if Joan does not pass
a test because she hardly studied, even though she had more
time to do so).
In line with our view that counterfactuals are more represen-
tative of the taking of preventative actions than of the undoing
of causal factors, we also expect that counterfactual content
453
(like preventability ascriptions) to focus on controllable factors.
This view is supported by literature that indicates that per-
ceived controllability is an important determinant of both
counterfactual availability (Girotto, Legrenzi, & Rizzo, 1991;
Markman, Gavanski, Sherman, & McMullen, 1995) and count-
erfactual directionality (i.e., whether the counterfactual im-
proves reality or provides a worse scenario; Roese & Olson,
1995b). The findings of Roese and Olson (1995b) are particu-
larly supportive because they show that upward counterfactuals
(i.e., counterfactuals that improve reality) were more likely to
focus on controllable antecedents than were downward count-
erfactuals (i.e., counterfactuals that simulate worse possible
worlds). If, as we suggest, upward counterfactuals focus on how
a negative outcome might have been prevented, and if prevent-
ability ascriptions follow a controllability criterion, then we
would expect upward counterfactuals to be significantly more
likely to focus on controllable actions than downward count-
erfactuals would, which may be implicated in nonattributional
processes.
One reason for the appeal of the counterfactual availability to
causal ascription link is that, like counterfactuals, causal ascrip-
tions usually focus on a single instance (Mackie, 1974). Count-
erfactual thinking (or mental simulation, more generally; Kah-
neman & Tversky, 1982 ) is a useful cognitive tool in reasoning
about single-case situations for which covariation information
is unavailable (Fearon, 1991; Hart & HonorS, 1959; cf. Lipe,
1991, who argued that covariation information is used as a
proxy for counterfactual information). Note, however, that just
because people often may focus on interpreting a particular out-
come, they may still rely on world knowledge about a larger set
of events of which the target outcome is an exemplar. That is,
although the focus of a causal judgment may often be particu-
laristic, the information used in arriving at a causal judgment
may focus on a larger set of events that are semantically related
to the target outcome. This view is consistent with an emerging
knowledge structure account of causal reasoning (Abelson &
Lalljee, 1988; Read, 1987, 1992; Read & Marcus-Newhall,
1993; Thagard, 1989) and with Cheng and Novick's (1990,
1991, 1992) covariational account of causal attribution and
causal induction.
Indeed, as Cheng and Novick ( 1991, 1992) have argued, for
people to distinguish between causes, enabling conditions, and
noncausal factors, it seems necessary that they consider covari-
ation between hypothesized causes and target outcomes over
different focal sets. A counterfactual criterion alone, however, is
insufficient to explain these commonly made distinctions. Con-
sider, for example, an inference made about the effect of oxygen
on the occurrence of fire. Using only a counterfactual criterion,
one would have to conclude that oxygen was a necessary cause
of fire because whenever oxygen is absent, fire is also absent. In
contrast, by applying a covariational criterion over different fo-
cal sets, the effect of oxygen on fire would likely be judged as an
enabling condition: First, because oxygen is present in everyday
situations (viz., one focal set), regardless of whether there is a
fire or not, it would not be ascribed a causal role because of
weak covariation. However, because oxygen does covary with
fire over a broader focal set in which instances of oxygen being
absent do occur, it would be viewed as an enabling condition,
rather than a noncausal factor, within the former focal set of
454 MANDEL AND LEHMAN
everyday occurrences. In other words, the causal judgments
people make about a focal set o f interest or even a particular
case seem to depend on their knowledge of causal and covaria-
tional relations in broader focal sets that provide frames o f ref-
erence. The use o f knowledge about covariation over a focal set
as a criterion for causal ascriptions suggests that people seek
causes for events that have, all other things being equal, the
greatest predictive value or explanatory breadth (see Read,
1992; Read & Marcus-Newhall, 1993; and Thagard, 1989).
Study 1
Study 1 was designed to test three interrelated hypotheses:
First, counterfactual content overlaps more with the content o f
preventability ascriptions than with the content of causal as-
criptions. Second, both counterfactuals and preventability as-
criptions focus on controllable actions that might have been
taken from a focal actor's perspective. In other words, count-
erfactual thinking and preventability ascription are guided pri-
marily by a controllability criterion. Third, causal ascriptions
focus on actions that general world knowledge indicates covary
with a target outcome over a focal set of instances, regardless
of the controllability of these actions. In other words, causal
ascription is guided primarily by a covariational criterion.
Method
Participants. One hundred and thirty eight ( 83 female and 42 male,
13 participants did not state their gender) University of British Colum-
bia (UBC) undergraduates participated in the study for course credit.
Materials and procedure. Participants first read the following mod-
ified version of Kahneman and Tversky's (t982) Jones's unusual route
scenario:
Mr. Jones is 47 years old, the father of three and a successful bank-
ing executive. His wife has been ill at home for several months.
On the day of his accident, Mr. Jones left his office at his regular
time. He occasionally left early to take care of home chores at his
wife's request, but this was not necessary on that day. Mr. Jones did
not drive home by his regular route. The day was exceptionally
clear, so Mr. Jones decided to drive along the shore to enjoy the
view.
The accident occurred at a major intersection. The light turned
yellow as Mr. Jones approached. Witnesses noted that he braked
hard to stop at the crossing, although he could have easily gone
through. His family recognized this as a common occurrence in
Mr. Jones's driving. As he began to cross after the light changed, a
truck charged into the intersection at high speed and rammed Mr.
Jones' car from the left, Mr, Jones was seriously injured.
It was later ascertained that the truck was driven by Mark Smith, a
teenager who was under the influence of alcohol. Mark was on his
way to a beach party that his friend had told him about earlier that
day.
After reading the scenario, participants answered one of six questions
depending on the condition to which they were randomly assigned.
Three of the six conditions focused on the thoughts of Jones (viz., Jones
conditions), whereas the remaining three conditions focused on the
thoughts of Smith (viz., Smith conditions). Crossed with the two levels
of person focus were three levels of thought focus (viz., counterfactual
vs. preventability vs. cause): In the counterfactual conditions, partici-
pants read, "'As commonly happens in such situations, (Mr. Jones)
[Mark Smith, the teenage driver], ot~en thought, "If only.. ?, (while he
was recovering in the hospital ) during the days that followed the acci-
dent. How do you think (Mr. Jones) [Mark] continued this thought?
Please write one or more likely completions." In the preventability con-
ditions, participants read, "As commonly happens in such situations,
( Mr. Jones) [ Mark Smith, the teenage driver], often thought about how
(his misfortune) [the accident] could have been prevented, (while he
was recovering in the hospital) during the day,s following the accident.
Please write what you think (Mr. Jones) [Mark] probably thought
about when he thought about how the accident could have been pre-
vented." In the cause conditions, participants read, "As commonly hap-
pens in such situations, (Mr. Jones) [ Mark Smith, the teenage driver],
often thought about the cause of(his misfortune ) [ the accident ], (while
he was recovering in the hospital) during the days that followed the ac-
cident. Please write what you think (Mr. Jones) [Mark] probably
thought about when he thought about how the accident was caused?"
After reading the question, participants received six blank lines to re-
spond in an open-ended manner. Participants were then debriefed and
thanked for their participation.
Data coding. Two independent raters coded participants' responses
in two ways. First, each participant's first statement was coded for
whether it focused on (a) a controllable action of Jones (e.g., "He
should have taken his regular route home," "He shoul6n't have stopped
at the yellow light," or "'He should have left earlier that day"), (b) a
controllable action of Smith (e.g., "He shouldn't have drank alcohol
before driving," "He should have been more careful," or "He shouldn't
have gone to the party"), or (c) something different (e.g., "If only there
wasn't a beach party that day"). Second, the number of statements
about either Jones's actions or Smith's actions was tabulated. Interrater
reliability was high for both methods of coding. Agreement for the first
method was 92%. Reliability was .93 for number of statements about
Jones and .95 for number of statements about Smith. We resolved dis-
agreements for both methods of coding by discussion.
Results and Discussion
If, as we suggest, participants focused on controllable actions
when thinking counterfactually and when generating prevent-
ability ascriptions, then participants in the Jones-counterfac-
tual and preventability conditions should be especially likely to
focus on controllable actions that Jones could have taken to
avert the accident. Similarly, we anticipated that participants in
the Smith-counterfactual and preventability conditions would
be especially likely to focus on controllable actions that Smith
could have taken to avert the accident. These predictions are in
line with the focus rule ( K a h n e m a n & Tversky, 1982), which
states that people focus on some property o f the main object o f
concern and attention (viz., either Jones or Smith). However,
our predictions diverge from the focus rule in the following
manner: Because causes need not be controllable actions but
are likely to covary over a focal set (e.g., drunk driving covaries
with motor vehicle accidents), we expected that participants in
the Jones-cause condition would be relatively more likely to fo-
cus on Smith's actions than would participants in the other two
Jones conditions. Finally, we predicted that, like participants in
the Smith-counterfactual and preventability conditions, partic-
ipants in the Smith-cause condition would focus on Smith's
drunk and reckless driving because, in general, d r u n k driving
covaries with car accidents; hence we did not predict significant
differences in response patterns between the three Smith
conditions.
To test these predictions, we analyzed participants' first state-
 COUNTERFACTUALS, CAUSES, AND PREVENTABILITY
Table 1
Number of Participants" First Responses as a Function of Response
Type and Condition in Study I
Jones
Response type CF Prev
Jones's unusual route 9 7
Jones's indecisive driving 6 7
Jones's time of departure 6 3
Smith's drunk/reckless driving 0 1
Total 21 18
Note. CF = counterfactual; prev= preventability. Data from 17 participants are not shown because the
content of their first statements represented small categories of responses accounting for no more than 1 or
2 participants.
ments using t w o ~(~2tests. As anticipated, participants in the
Jones conditions were significantly more likely to focus on
Jones's controllable actions (as opposed to Smith's controllable
actions) in the counterfactual condition (100%) and in the pre-
ventability condition (94%) than in the cause condition (55%),
x 2(2, N = 61 ) = 17.71, p = .0001.2 Also as predicted, partici-
pants in the Smith conditions were highly likely to focus on
Smith's controllable actions across all three thought conditions:
87% for the counterfactual condition, 92% for the preventability
condition, and 74% for the cause condition, x2(2, N = 67) =
2.95, p > .20.
The specific types of first statements offered by participants
in each condition are shown in Table 1. Most of the statements
focusing on Jones's actions fell into three categories: statements
concerning his choice of an unusual route home that day, state-
ments concerning his indecisive driving habits, and statements
concerning his time of departure from work. With few excep-
tions, the statements focusing on Smith's actions dealt with his
d r u n k or reckless driving. In line with our hypothesis that par-
ticipants would focus on covarying antecedents when ascribing
causality to target outcomes, Smith's drunk-reckless driving
was the most frequently mentioned response in both the Jones-
cause and the Smith-cause conditions.
Because participants' first statements may not be reflective of
their overall responses, we also analyzed the total n u m b e r of
statements about Jones's and Smith's controllable actions. The
mean n u m b e r of statements focusing on Jones, M = 1.16, SD
= 1.17, and Smith, M = 1.28, SD = 1.13, respectively, did not
differ significantly, t < 1. For each participant, we calculated the
proportion of Smith to Jones statements by dividing the n u m -
ber of Smith statements + 1 by the n u m b e r of Jones statements
+ 1 ( 1 was added to the numerator and denominator to avoid
undefined divisions). These proportions were then log
transformed to normalize the distribution of values. The
transformed proportions were analyzed using a 2 (person focus )
× 3 (thought focus) factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA).
Not surprisingly, we obtained a significant main effect for per-
son focus. As can be seen by comparing the row totals in Table
2, participants in the Jones conditions provided a significantly
greater mean proportion of statements that focused on Jones's
controllable actions than did participants in the Smith condi-
tions, F ( 1,131 ) = 162.13,p < .001.
455
Smith
Cause CF Prev Cause Total
8 2 0 0 26
5 2 1 2 23
0 1 I 0 11
10 16 22 12 61
23 21 24 14 123
More important, and corroborating the previous × 2 analyses,
a significant Person-Focus × Thought-Focus interaction was
obtained, F ( 2 , 131 ) = 9.00, p < .00 I. As can be seen in Table
2, whereas each of the three mean proportions in the Smith
conditions are substantially positive (indicating a greater pro-
portion of statements focused on Smith's actions), only the
Jones-counterfactual and -preventability conditions had high
mean proportions of statements focused on Jones's actions; in
the Jones-cause condition, the mean proportion was close to 0,
indicating a roughly equal split between statements focusing on
Jones and Smith, respectively. Pairwise tests confirmed this ac-
count: None of the pairwise tests between thought-focus condi-
tions were significant for participants in the Smith conditions,
smallest p > . 10. The mean proportion of Jones statements in
the Jones-cause condition, however, was significantly lower than
in either the Jones-counterfactual, t( 131 ) = 3.24, p < .005, or
Jones-preventability, t( 131 ) = 3.71, p < .005, conditions (the
mean proportions in the latter two conditions did not differ sig-
nificantly, t < 1 ).
The findings from Study 1 indicate that counterfactuals, like
preventability ascriptions, tend to focus on controllable actions.
In contrast, causal ascriptions are more likely to focus on ante-
cedents that covary with a target outcome over a focal set of
cases. In this study, covariation was implied because it is com-
m o n knowledge that driving while intoxicated increases one's
chances of driving recklessly and causing an accident. Note that
N'ghala and Branseombe's (1995) suggestion that counterfac-
tuals tend to focus on necessary causes, whereas causal attribu-
tions tend to focus on sufficient causes, c a n n o t account for our
findings. Jones's choice of an unusual route c a n n o t be objec-
tively described as a necessary cause of his accident because he
may have been in an accident, even if he took his usual route.
Similarly, Smith's actions, by themselves, were insufficient to
cause the accident. Moreover, if one considers what was neces-
sary for the accident under the circumstances (see Mackie,
1974), then Jones's actions would have to be viewed as no more
necessary for the outcome than would Smith's reckless driving
because without the latter antecedent that particular accident
would not have occurred.
2 The othercategory of responses, which represented only 7% of par-
ticipants' statements, was excluded from analyses.
456 MANDEL AND LEHMAN
Table 2
Mean Log Proportion o f Smith to Jones Statements as a
Function o f Person Focus and Thought Focus in Study I
Thought focus
Person focus Counterfactual Preventability Cause Overall
Jones -.33 -.37 -.08 -.26
Smith .36 .33 .22 .30
Overall .03 .01 .06 .03
Also note that, a l t h o u g h the focus rule can a c c o u n t for the
significant m a i n effect for person focus, the focus rule c a n n o t
explain the significant Person-Focus × T h o u g h t - F o c u s interac-
tion. T h a t is, the focus rule c a n n o t explain why p a r t i c i p a n t s in
the Jones-cause condition focus a b o u t as m u c h on S m i t h as
Jones. We suggest t h a t this finding is d u e to the differing criteria
used to generate c o u n t e r f a c t u a l a n d preventability ascriptions,
on the one h a n d (viz., a controllability c r i t e r i o n ) , a n d causal
ascriptions, on the other h a n d (viz., a covariational c r i t e r i o n ) .
Indeed, the near-equal split o b t a i n e d in the Jones-cause condi-
tion may reflect a c o m p e t i t i o n between the focus rule (leading
to a n e m p h a s i s on Jones's a c t i o n s ) a n d a covariational criterion
(leading in this case to a focus o n S m i t h ' s actions).
Alternatively, it is also possible t h a t p a r t i c i p a n t s a s s u m e d t h a t
J o n e s would have learned a b o u t S m i t h ' s behaviors (e.g., driving
d r u n k ) b u t t h a t S m i t h would n o t have k n o w n a b o u t Jones's
behaviors (e.g., taking a n u n u s u a l route a n d Jones's indecisive
driving h a b i t s ) . T h i s potential i n f o r m a t i o n a s y m m e t r y may
have resulted in Jones-cause p a r t i c i p a n t s focusing m o r e on
S m i t h ' s b e h a v i o r t h a n S m i t h - c a u s e p a r t i c i p a n t s focusing on
Jones's behavior. In the following two studies, all participants
adopt the same focus, t h u s ruling o u t this i n t e r p r e t a t i o n o f the
results,
Study 2
In Study 2, we sought to replicate the basic findings o f Study
1, using a different vignette a n d a within-subjects design. O n c e
again, we a n t i c i p a t e d t h a t p a r t i c i p a n t s ' c o u n t e r f a c t u a l s would
c o r r e s p o n d m o r e closely in c o n t e n t to t h e i r preventability as-
c r i p t i o n s t h a n t h e i r causal ascriptions. Moreover, we expected
that, as in Study 1, p a r t i c i p a n t s ' c o u n t e r f a c t u a l s a n d prevent-
ability ascriptions would focus on controllable actions, whereas
t h e i r causal ascriptions would follow a covariational criterion.
Unlike Study 1, however, this study i n c l u d e d a m a n i p u l a t i o n
check o n the perceived controllability o f key events in the
scenario.
Method
Participants. Fifty-seven ( 34 female and 23 male) UBC undergrad-
uates participated in the study for course credit,
Materials" and procedure. Participants first read the following
vignette:
Mrs. Wallace was somewhat distressed about her husband flying
from Vancouver to Calgary for a convention. She herself was afraid
of flying, and neither her nor her husband had ever flown anywhere
before, in the past, they had either driven or taken the train to their
destination. On this occasion, however, Mrs. Wallace was not ac-
companying her husband on this two day business trip. Mr. Wallace
told his wife that he was going to book a flight because he didn't
want to spend so many hours driving or taking the train. Mr. Wal-
lace booked a flight even though he had originally considered
driving.
Mr. Wallace, although a little uneasy about flying for the first time,
tried to assure his wife that everything would be alright. These as-
surances did little to put her at ease. She thought about pleading
with him to take the train instead. But she didn't because she felt
silly doing so, even though she knew that her husband would defi-
nitely have changed his plans at her request if she pleaded.
One week later, Mr. Wallace took his flight to Calgary. About mid-
way through the flight, the plane crashed, tragically killing Mr. Wal-
lace and all others on board. In the weeks following the crash, a
formal investigation found evidence from the debris and flight re-
corder that indicated that the plane's engine had spontaneously
malfunctioned, leaving the pilot no time for an emergency landing.
The investigation also determined that the plane's engine was in-
spected thoroughly by a qualified maintenance team prior to take-
off. Other plane engines of the same model were also inspected for
structural flaws in manufacturing, but this inspection revealed that
the engines were well constructed.
Next, participants read the counterfactual question, "'As commonly
happens in such situations, Mrs. Wallace often thought '!fonly ...',
while she grieved the loss of her husband. How do you think she contin-
ued this thought? Imagining you are Mrs. Wallace, please write one or
more likely completions." Participants were given four if-only stems to
complete. Participants were then asked the preventability question: "'If
you were Mrs. Wallace, and you were thinking about how Mr. Wallace's
death could have been prevented, what would you think about?" Next,
participants were asked the cause question: "If you were Mrs. Wallace,
and you were thinking about the cause of Mr. Wallace's death, what
would you think about?" For each of the latter two questions, partici-
pants received five blank lines to respond in an open-ended manner.
Finally, participants were asked to rate "how controllable" (a) "was the
engine malfunction?" (b) "'was Mrs. Wallace's decision not to plead
with her husband?" and (c) '~was Mr. Wallace's decision toffy to Cal-
gary?'" on a 7-point scale ranging from ( 1 ) not at all controllable,
through ( 4 ) rnoderateh' c¢mtrollable, to ( 7 ) totally controllable. Partici-
pants were then debriefed and thanked for their participation.
Data c~)ding. A rater who was blind to the purpose of the study
coded responses to the counterfactual, preventability, and cause ques-
tions for the presence or absence of statements regarding (a) Mr. Wal-
lace's actions (e.g., "He should have taken the train" or "He shouldn't
have gone on the trip at all"), (b) Mrs. Wallace's actions (e.g., "'She
should have pleaded with him not to go by plane" or "She should have
gone with him"), and (c) the engine malfunction (e.g., "The plane en-
gine was the problem'" or "'The maintenance team could have found the
engine problem").
These three categories were of interest for the following reasons: Mr.
Wallace was a focal target because each question was oriented toward
his death. Mrs. Wallace was a focal target because participants were
asked to respond from her point of view. We anticipated that partici-
pants would view the actions of Mr. Wallace and Mrs. Wallace as con-
trollable from a focal person's perspective, even though these actions do
not covary with plane crashes. In contrast, the engine malfunction was
a factor that general world knowledge indicates would covary with plane
crashes, even though it was uncontrollable from either of the two focal
actors' perspectives.
 COUNTERFACTUALS, CAUSES, AND PREVENTABILITY
Table 3
Proportion of Participants as a Function of Response Type
and Question Type in Study 2
Response category
Question type Mr. Wallace Mrs.Wallace Engine Overalla
Counterfactual .37 .93 .11 .97
Preventability .28 .72 .07 .90
Causality .11 .26 .32 .58
Overallb .58 .97 .40
a Proportion of participants mentioning one or more of the three re-
sponse categories, b Proportion of participants mentioning a response
category for one or more of the three questions.
Results and Discussion
Manipulation check. We anticipated that participants
would rate both Mr. Wailace's and Mrs. Wallace's actions as
significantly more controllable than the engine malfunction. As
expected, a repeated-measures ANOVA on the three controlla-
bility ratings was highly significant, F(2, 86) = 74.68, p < .001.
This effect was clearly attributable to the lower mean rating of
controllability for the engine malfunction, M = 2.02, SD =
1.49, than for either Mr. Wallace's actions, M = 5.27, SD =
1.56, or Mrs. Wallace's actions, M = 5.16, SD = 1.64.
Analyses within question type. We hypothesized that people
would be guided by a controllability criterion when generating
both counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions and by a co-
variational criterion when generating causal ascriptions. Ac-
cordingly, we should find that participants focus more on both
Mr. Wallace's actions and Mrs. Wailace's actions (each rela-
tively high in perceived controllability) than on the engine mal-
function (relatively low in perceived controllability) when an-
swering both the counterfactual and preventability questions.
Alternatively, we should find that participants focus more on
the engine malfunction (relatively high in implicit covariation)
than on either Mr. Wallace's actions or Mrs. Wallace's actions
(both relatively low in implicit covariation ) when answering the
causal question.
Table 3 shows the proportion of participants' statements as a
function of response type and question type. As predicted, when
participants generated counterfactuals, the proportions of par-
ticipants who mentioned Mr. Wallace's actions and Mrs. Wal-
lace's actions, respectively, were greater than the proportion
mentioning the engine malfunction (see the first row of Table
3). The difference between these three related proportions was
significant, Cochran's Q(2, N = 57 ) -- 66.50, p < .0001, and all
three pairwise comparisons were significant, largest p < .002.
An analysis of participants' preventability statements re-
vealed a similar pattern of findings. As expected, the propor-
tions of participants who mentioned Mr. Wallace's actions and
Mrs. Wallace's actions, respectively, were greater than the pro-
portion mentioning the engine malfunction (see the second row
of Table 3 ). The difference between these three proportions was
significant, Cochran's Q(2, N = 57 ) = 42.76, p < .0001, and all
three pairwise comparisons were significant, largest p < .005.
Finally, as anticipated, the proportion of participants who
457
mentioned the engine malfunction was greater than the propor-
tions mentioning either Mr. Wallace's actions or Mrs. Wallace's
actions in response to the causal question (see the third row of
Table 3).3 The difference between these three proportions was
significant, Cochran's Q(2, N = 57) = 7.55, p < .03. The pair-
wise comparison between the proportion of participants men-
tioning Mrs. Wallace's actions and the proportion mentioning
the engine malfunction, however, was nonsignificant,Cochran's
Q < l; the remaining two pairwise comparisons were signifi-
cant, largest p < .03.
The preceding analyses examined differences in the propor-
tion of participants mentioning each response category within
each question type. The results of these analyses clearly support
the notion that counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions
focus more on controllable actions than relatively uncontrolla-
ble actions. The findings also provide some additional support
for the notion that causal ascriptions focus more on antecedents
that covary with a target outcome over a focal set of instances.4
Analyses within response type. In addition to examining
whether counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions focus
more on controllable events than uncontrollable events, we ask
whether controllable events are more likely the focus of count-
erfactuals and preventability ascriptions than causal ascrip-
tions, which we would also expect. The proportion of partici-
pants who mentioned Mr. Wallace's actions was, in fact, greater
in response to both the counterfactual and the preventability
questions than to the causal question (see the first column of
Table 3). The difference between these three related propor-
tions was significant, Cochran's Q(2, N = 57) = 10.94, p <
.005. The smaller of the two predicted differences (viz., prevent-
ability vs. cause questions) was also significant, Cochran's Q( l,
N = 57) = 5.00, p < .03; however, the proportion of participants
mentioning Mr. Wallace's actions did not differ between re-
sponses to the counterfactual and preventability questions,
Cochran's Q( l, N = 57) = 1.19, p > .25.
An analysis of statements about Mrs. Wallace's actions re-
vealed a similar pattern. As expected, the proportion of partici-
pants who mentioned Mrs. WaUace's actions was greater in re-
sponse to both the counterfactual and the preventability ques-
tions than in response to the causal question (see the second
column of Table 3). The difference between these three propor-
tions was significant, Cochran's Q(2, N = 57) = 50.31, p <
3 Because when asked the cause question 42% of participants did not
mention any of the three response categories that were of a priori inter-
est, we examined the other responsesoffered. A considerablepercentage
of participants mentioned two categories of responses: First, 25% men-
tioned that the pilot was causally implicated (only 9% of participants
mentioned the pilot in response to both the counterfactual and prevent-
ability questions). The percentages across question type for this cate-
gory are consistent with our predictions because the pilot's action, al-
though not controllable from either of the two focal actors" perspectives,
is consistent with world knowledgeabout events that covary with plane
crashes. Second, 33% of the participants mentioned that the cause of
the accident was fate (0% and 11%of the participants, respectively,men-
tioned this category in response to the counterfactual and preventability
questions).
4 The data also indicate that across all question types participants
focused more on Mrs. Wallace'sactions than Mr. Wallace'sactions. This
finding, however,is of no theoretical interest.
458 MANDEL AND LEHMAN
.0001, and all three pairwise comparisons were significant,
largest p < .002.
Finally, as anticipated, the proportion of participants who
mentioned the engine malfunction was greater in response to
the causal question than to either the counterfactual or the pre-
ventability question (see the third column of Table 3). The
difference between these three proportions was significant,
Cochran's Q(2, N = 57 ) = 14.96, p < .001. The smaller of the
two predicted differences (viz., counterfactual vs. cause
questions) was also significant, Cochran's Q( l, N = 57) = 8.00,
p < .005; however, the proportion of participants mentioning
the engine malfunction did not differ between responses to the
counterfactual and preventability questions, Cochran's Q < 1.
The preceding set of analyses examined whether controllable
events were more the focus of counterfactuals and preventabil-
ity ascriptions than causal ascriptions. Without exception, the
obtained findings supported this prediction. The within-re-
sponse-type analyses also indicated that the nonsignificant
difference in proportions between participants mentioning Mrs.
Wallace's actions and participants mentioning the engine mal-
function in response to the causal question was attributable to
the overall high proportion of participants mentioning the for-
mer category and the overall low proportion mentioning the lat-
ter category. That is, whereas only 27% (26/.97) of participants
mentioned Mrs. Wallace's actions in the cause condition, 80%
(32/.40) of participants mentioned the engine malfunction in the
cause condition. Taken together, the results of the within-ques-
tion-type and within-response-type analyses suggest that both
counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions focus on events
high in perceived controllability from a target person's perspec-
tive. Moreover, as in Study l, participants were significantly
more likely to focus on antecedents that general world knowl-
edge indicates would covary with the target outcome when gen-
erating causal ascriptions than when generating counterfactuals
or preventability ascriptions.
A limitation of Study 2 is that all participants received the
questions in the same order. However, because participants re-
sponded to the cause question after the counterfactual and pre-
ventability questions, we suggest that, if anything, this ordering
would have increased the overlap between their causal ascrip-
tions and their preventability ascriptions or their counterfactual
statements. That is, participants' preventability ascriptions
would be highly available when answering the cause question.
Obtaining the predicted divergence in the content of partici-
pants' causal ascriptions from the content of their counterfac-
tual and preventability statements under these conditions,
therefore, seems particularly compelling.
One-way dependence of causal and preventability ascriptions
on counterfactuals. Because Study 2 relies on a within-sub-
jects design, we can also address more specifically the likelihood
of particular causal and preventability ascriptions, given that
participants offered the same response content to the count-
erfactual question. If our account is correct, then given a partic-
ular response to the counterfactual question (e.g., one focusing
on Mr. Wallace's actions), the probability of that same response
to the preventability question should be greater than the proba-
bility of that same response to the cause question. Table 4 shows
these conditional probabilities and the weighted difference be-
tween them (last column). Positive difference scores (or
Table 4
Conditional Probability of a Particular Response Type on
Preventability or Cause Ascriptions Given Same Response to
Counterfactual Question in Study 2
Question type
Response type Preventability Cause 2uTM AP X P(R) b
Mr. Wallace .38 .10 .28 .10
Mrs. Wallace .75 .26 .49 .46
Engine .17 .50 -.33 -.04
M .43 .29 .15 .17
a AP = difference between the two conditional probabilities, bP(R)=
the base probability of offeringa givenresponse type on the counterfae-
tual question (see top row of Table 3). Therefore, AP × P(R) represents
a weighted differencescore.
weighted difference scores) indicate that the likelihood of a par-
ticular preventability ascription, given the same counterfactual
content focus, is greater than the likelihood of a particular
causal ascription, given the same counterfactual focus. That is,
positive difference scores indicate a greater one-way dependence
of preventability-ascriptive content on counterfactual content
than ofcausal-ascriptive content on counterfactual content. As
expected, across the three response types, the mean weighted
difference score was positive. This finding lends further support
to the notion that counterfactual thinking has more to do with
thinking about how an outcome might have been prevented
than how it might have been caused.
Content overlap between counterfactuals and preventability
ascriptions. Although the within-question-type analyses indi-
• cate that both counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions
are more likely to focus on controllable antecedents (viz., Mr.
Wallace's or Mrs. Wallace's actions) than causal ascriptions are,
neither these nor the within-response-type analyses directly ad-
dress the overlap between counterf~.ctuals and preventability as-
criptions in terms of their focus on the same controllable ante-
cedents. If counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions do
overlap, then we would expect that participants who focus on
Mr. Wallace's actions in response to either the counterfactual or
the preventability question should be more likely to focus on
Mr. Wallace's actions in response to the other question than to
focus on Mrs. Wallace's actions in response to that other ques-
tion. Similarly, participants who focus on Mrs. Wallace's ac-
tions on one of the two questions should be more likely to focus
on Mrs. Wallace's actions in response to the other question than
to focus on Mr. Wallace's actions.
To test this hypothesis, we first calculated phi coefficients for
the association between (a) Mr. Wallace responses on the count-
erfactual question and Mr. Wallace responses on the prevent-
ability question, (b) Mr. Wallace responses on the counterfac-
tual question and Mrs. Wallace responses on the preventability
question, (c) Mrs. Wallace responses on the counterfactual
question and Mr. Wallace responses on the preventability ques-
tion, and (d) Mrs. Wallace responses on the counterfactual
question and Mrs. Wallace responses on the preventability ques-
tion. For a-d, the phi coefficients were. 17,. 15, .02, and .29,
respectively. Although, as expected, the difference between the
 COUNTERFACTUALS, CAUSES, AND PREVENTABILITY 459

mean phi coefficient for content-congruent responses (i.e., a Table 5

and d, M = .23) was greater than the corresponding value for Mean Causal Strength as a Function of Mutability Condition
content-incongruent responses (i.e., b and c, M = .09), it was and Causal Focus in Study 3
not a reliable effect (t test for nonindependent correlations
<1). Plead

Fly Low High Overall

Study 3
Engine malfunction
The findings of Studies 1 and 2 support the notion that count- Low 6.72 6.64 6.68
erfactuals offer a natural cognitive and verbal syntax for ex- High 6.96 7.35 7.14
pressing hindsight ascriptions o f preventability for negative Overall 6.84 6.98 6.91
events. These studies also provide evidence that preventability
Mr. Wallace's decision to fly
ascriptions do not simply focus on the negation o f what is be-
lieved to be the cause of a target outcome. Like participants' Low 2.52 2.52 2.52
responses to explicit questions about preventability, their re- High 2.23 2,26 2.24
Overall 2.37 2.40 2.38
sponses to nonleading i f only prompts led them to focus more
on controllable events than events to which they ascribed a pri- Mrs. Wallace's decision not to plead
marily causal role. Thus, rather than representing tests in which
Low 1.36 1.96 1.66
hypothesized causes are negated, counterfactuals may more of- High 1.38 1.57 1.47
ten represent the post hoc cognitive sense that controllable, pre- Overall 1.37 1.77 1.57
ventative actions might have been taken. These findings raise
questions about the generality of the only previous study (Wells Note. Fly = mutability of Mr. Wallace's decision to fly to the conven-
tion; Plead = mutability of Mrs. Wallace's decision not to plead with
& Gavanski, 1989) that empirically demonstrated an influence
her husband to take the train.
of counterfactual availability on causal thinking. The purpose
of Study 3 was to investigate the relation between counterfac-
tual availability and judgments of causal significance. Like
Wells and Gavanski, we manipulated counterfactual availability Participants were randomly assigned to one of the four mutability
by constructing default events that were more or less mutable, conditions and read the assigned vignette. Next, they were asked (as in
Wells & Gavanski's, 1989, study) to "list four things that could have
However, unlike Wells and Gavanski's vignettes, our vignette
been different so that Mr. Wallace's death might have been avoided. ""
included both a controllable antecedent that did not implicitly
Finally, participants responded, on 9-point scales ranging from (0) not
covary with the target outcome and an uncontrollable anteced- at all the cause, through (4) moderately the cause, to ( 8 ) very much the
ent that did implicitly covary with the target outcome, thus al- cause, to each of the following three questions about the cause of Mr.
lowing participants more choice in terms o f what they ascribe Wallace's death: (a) "To what extent is the engine malfunction the cause
as preventative and causal, respectively. of Mr. Wallace's death?" (b) "To what extent is Mrs. Wallace's failure
to plead with her husband not to fly to Calgary the cause of his death?"
and (c) "To what extent is Mr. Wallace's decision to fly to Calgary the
Method cause of his own death?" Participants were then debriefed and thanked
Participants. Ninety-nine (71 female and 28 male) UBC under- for their participation. As in Study 2, a rater who was blind to the pur-
graduates participated in the study for course credit. pose of the study coded participants' open-ended statements about avoi-
Materials and procedure. We constructed four modified versions of dability for the presence or absence of statements regarding (a) Mr. Wal-
the vignette used in Study 2 that manipulated the mutability of both lace's actions, (b) Mrs. Wallace's actions, and (c) the engine
Mr. Wallace's decision to fly and Mrs. Wallace's decision not to plead malfunction.
with her husband. The mutability of Mr, Wallace's decision to fly was
manipulated in the following manner: In the low-mutability (Flylow) Results and Discussion
conditions, the last sentence of the first paragraph read, "Mr. Wallace
told his wife that he was going to book a flight because he didn't want to Effects o f mutability Supporting the effectiveness o f our
spend so many hours driving or taking the train?' In the high-mutability mutability manipulations, we found that a significantly higher
(Flyhigh) conditions, an additional sentence was added: "Mr. Wallace percentage of participants in the Flyhigh conditions (100%)
booked a flight even though he had originally considered driving?' The mentioned Mr. Wailace's actions in their counterfactual state-
mutability of Mrs. Wallace's decision not to plead with her husband ments about avoidability than in the Flflow conditions (86%),
to take an alternative form of transportation was manipulated in the ×2( 1, N = 99) = 7.38, p < ,007. A significantly higher percent-
following manner: In the low-mutability (Pleadlow) conditions, the last age of participants in the Pleadhigh conditions (75%) men-
sentence of the second paragraph read, "But she didn't [ plead ], because tioned Mrs. Wallace's actions in their counterfactual statements
she knew that once her husband made up his mind he definitely would about avoidability than in the Pleadlow conditions (55%),
not change his plans at her request?' In the high-mutability (Pleadhigh)
×2( 1, N = 99) = 4.37, p < . 0 4 .
conditions, the last sentence of the second paragraph read, "But she
Table 5 shows participants' mean causal judgments as a func-
didn't [plead], because she felt silly doing so, even though she knew that
her husband would definitely have changed his plans at her request if tion o f mutability condition. In contrast to the effect of the mu-
she pleaded?' The two mutability variables (Fly and Plead) were fully tability manipulations on counterfactual statements about
crossed. The vignettes were identical to the vignette used in Study 2 in avoidability, and in contrast to the findings of Wells and Gavan-
all other respects. ski (1989), we found that neither mutability manipulation nor
460 MANDEL AND LEHMAN
the interaction of these dichotomous variables had a significant
effect on any of the three causal ratings, smallest p > . 15.
Controllable versus covarying antecedents. Replicating the
findings of Study 2 and supporting our hypothesis that people
focus on controllable antecedents in their counterfactual
thoughts about avoidability, we found that, compared with the
proportion of participants mentioning the engine malfunction
(.21), a significantly greater proportion of participants men-
tioned Mrs. Wallace's actions (.65), Cochran's Q( 1, N = 99)
= 34.89, p < .0001, and a significantly greater proportion of
participants mentioned Mr. Wallace's actions (.93), Cochran's
Q( 1, N = 99) = 67.21,p < .0001.
If people rely on world knowledge about covariation in as-
cribing causality, then we should find that participants rate the
engine malfunction as more causal than the actions of either
Mr. Wallace or Mrs. Wallace. It is also plausible, however, that
counterfactual availability has an effect on causal thinking. If
this were so, we would expect that participants who mentioned
a particular antecedent in their counterfactual statements about
how Mr. Wallace's death might have been avoided would have
rated that antecedent as more causal than participants who did
not mention the same antecedent. To test these two hypotheses,
we calculated a repeated measures analysis of variance on par-
ticipants' three causal judgments. We entered each of the three
dichotomous content-coding variables (viz., Mr. Wallace's ac-
tions, Mrs. Wallace's actions, and engine malfunction) first as
covariates; we made type of causal ascription (Mr. Wallace's
decision to fly vs. Mrs. Wallace's decision not to plead vs. engine
malfunction) the repeated measure. Contrary to the notion that
counterfactual availability significantly influences causal judg-
ments, the influence of the three covariates on mean causal rat-
ings was nonsignificant, F < I. In contrast, the effect of type of
cause was highly significant, F ( 2 , 195 ) = 179.0 l, p < .001, and
as can be seen in Table 5, this effect was due primarily to the
higher mean causal rating of the engine malfunction than either
Mr. Wallace's decision to fly or Mrs. Wallace's decision not to
plead.
The results of Study 3 add further support to the notion that
counterfactual thinking often focuses on preventability ascrip-
tions rather than causal ascriptions. Manipulating the mutabil-
ity of default events had an anticipated effect on participants'
counterfactual thoughts about avoidability (i.e., preventability)
but not on their causal judgments. Moreover, consistent with
N'gbala and Branscombe (1995), counterfactual availability
had no significant relation to causal judgments. Finally, as in
Studies 1 and 2, the results of Study 3 suggest that, whereas post
hoc preventability ascriptions focus on controllable actions,
post hoc causal judgments focus on antecedents that world
knowledge indicates would covary with a target outcome over a
focal set o f instances.
General Discussion
Over the past decade, many researchers (Einhorn & Hogarth,
1986; Hilton, 1990; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982; Lipe, 1991;
McGilI, 1989, 1990; McGill & Klein, 1993; Roese & Olson,
1995a; Wells & Gavanski, 1989) have posited that causal as-
criptions depend in a significant way on counterfactual think-
ing. From a logical perspective, it is indisputable that count-
erfactuals have causal implications (in the broad sense of the
term cause), insofar as they deal with conditional relations be-
tween antecedent and consequent events (Roese & Olson,
1995a). From a psychological perspective, however, it is unclear
whether counterfactual thinking plays a significant role in the
process of ascribing (facilitative) causes to target events. In this
article, we proposed that counterfactuals relate differentially to
facilitative and inhibitory causal ascriptions. Specifically, we ar-
gued that counterfactuals correspond more closely in content
to preventability (inhibitory causal) ascriptions than to
(facilitative) causal ascriptions and that the stronger correspon-
dence between the former two types of thoughts is due in part to
their shared focus on controllable events (i.e., a controllability
criterion ). We anticipated, however, that (facilitative) causal as-
criptions would be guided primarily by a covariational criterion
rather than by counterfactual or controllability criteria.
The findings strongly support these hypotheses. Across stud-
ies, we found a significantly greater correspondence between
counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions than between
counterfactuals and causal ascriptions. More important, we
also found that counterfactuals and preventability ascriptions
focus primarily on controllable events and that these two types
of thoughts focus on controllable events significantly more often
than do causal ascriptions. Causal ascriptions, however, tend to
focus more on antecedents that general world knowledge indi-
cates would covary with the target outcome over a focal set of
events. We obtained this overall pattern of findings using differ-
ent scenarios, study designs, and data-analytic techniques.
Implications for Ca usal Ascriptions
These findings, corroborating N'gbala and Branscombe
(1995), suggest that people do not ascribe causes according to a
counterfactual criterion. That is, they are not significantly more
likely to consider a given antecedent as a facilitative cause sim-
ply because that antecedent is the focus of their counterfactual
thoughts. Nevertheless, we interpret our results cautiously: We
do not deny that counterfactual availability may, under some
conditions, have an influence on causal ascriptions (as was dem-
onstrated by Wells & Gavanski, 1989). Nor do we deny claims
that causes must be mutable (see, e.g., Hart & HonorS, 1959;
Kahneman, 1995; and Kahneman & Miller, 1986).
What we have questioned, however, is the importance of
counterfactual availability in augmenting support for a partic-
ular causal candidate when participants are given the opportu-
nity to respond according to an alternative covariational crite-
rion that may be more central to the process of causal ascrip-
tion. We suggest that, whereas some degree of perceived
mutability of a particular antecedent may be necessary for it to
be deemed a cause, mutability--even extreme mutability--is
generally insufficient to elicit a corresponding causal ascription.
Thus, although causal ascriptions may be constrained by a mu-
tability criterion, they are not likely constructed according to a
counterfactual-availability criterion.
In line with both knowledge structure and covariational ac-
counts of causal reasoning, we suggested that causal ascriptions
would focus on events that world knowledge indicates would
covary with the target outcome over a focal set of cases. Using a
covariational criterion for arriving at causal ascriptions would
 COUNTERFACTUALS, CAUSES, AND PREVENTABILITY
result in greater explanatory breadth than using either a count-
erfactual-availability or controllability criterion. This was evi-
dent in our research: In Studies 2 and 3, for example, the actions
of Mr. Wallace and Mrs. Wallace provided little explanatory
breadth, even though these actions were counterfactually avail-
able. That is, these actions could not explain why other people
were killed in the same plane crash. In contrast, the less count-
erfactually available engine malfunction could account for these
other deaths as well as Mr. WaUace's death, and even more gen-
erally, plane crashes resulting in death are likely to covary with
engine malfunctions. In short, focusing on the engine malfunc-
tion as a facilitative cause yields the greatest explanatory
breadth in that scenario. Also note that a su~ciency criterion
applied to a single case (see N'ghala & Branscombe, 1995) can-
not achieve explanatory breadth precisely because of its narrow
focus.
Implicationsfor Counterfactual Thinking
As noted earlier, recent literature on counterfactual thinking
and causal reasoning suggests that counterfactuals represent,
among other things, a method for testing the plausibility of var-
ious hypothesized causes. In contrast, we characterize count-
erfactuals not as test results indicating whY an outcome oc-
curred but as highly available mental simulations that often rep-
resent how various outcomes could have been prevented (cf.
Kahneman & Miller, 1986). As our findings indicate, count-
erfactuals are closely aligned with post hoc preventability as-
criptions that focus on controllable events.
In contrast to the notion that counterfactual thinking drives
the causal ascription process, we suggest that counterfactual
thinking may represent a cognitive syntax for expressing per-
ceptions of cause-effect relations in a conditional schematic
form. This view is supported by research indicating that people
are geared toward processing counterfactual conditional infor-
mation. For example, information from counterfactual condi-
tional statements is encoded in memory as semantically com-
plex propositions that retain the linguistic form of the count-
erfactual (Carpenter, 1973), and recall accuracy is better for
counterfactual statements than causal statements (Fillenbaum,
1974). The preceding view is also consistent with some litera-
ture on reasoning (e,g., Cheng & Holyoak, 1985; Lehman,
Lempert, & Nisbett, 1988; Nisbett, Fong, Lehman, & Cheng,
1987 ), which suggests that people rely on pragmatic inferential
rules or reasoning schemas ( see also Kelley, 1971 b) that are iso-
morphic with either conditional or biconditional implication.
FunctionalImplications
Our findings (and our interpretation of them) raise the ques-
tion, Why should counterfactual preventability ascriptions fo-
cus on controllable antecedents and causal ascriptions focus on
covarying antecedents? Although our data do not directly ad-
dress this issue, we suggest that, at least in the case of negative
events, there is functional value in differentiating the criteria
used for constructing preventability and causal ascriptions, re-
spectively. By focusing on a covariational criterion in causal
judgments, people reduce future unpredictability. In contrast,
by focusing on controllable antecedents that can nullify the
461
effect of a potential cause, people may garner knowledge that
they personally can use to prevent unwanted outcomes of a sim-
ilar nature from occurring in the future. Thus, whereas causal
ascriptions may aid in predicting events, preventability ascrip-
tions may aid in intervening in events. The processes of predict-
ing and intervening functionally complement each other. Pre-
dicting negative events without intervening is functionally fu-
tile, and intervention simply cannot proceed effectively without
predictive knowledge.
This functional view is consistent with Taylor's (Taylor &
Pham, in press; Taylor & Schneider, 1989) notion that count-
erfactual thinking (or mental simulation, more generally) pro-
vides a thought-to-action link, facilitating the execution of goal-
directed, controllable plans (for empirical support, see Roese,
1994). Returning to Kahneman and Varey's (1990) notion of
competitive causation, it appears that people seek an under-
standing of the facilitative causes of an event as well as a com-
petitive plan for how they might have disabled or overcome that
cause, so as to have prevented an undesirable outcome from
occurring. From this perspective, both counterfactual and
causal thinking may represent different functional responses to
expectancy disconfirmations involving negative outcomes (see
Olson, Roese, & Zanna, in press). As an emerging functional
perspective on counterfactual thinking (see, e.g., Gleicher et al.,
1990; M. K. Johnson & Sherman, 1990; Markman et al., 1993;
Roese, 1994; Roese & Olson, 1993, 1995b; Taylor & Pham, in
press; and Taylor & Schneider, 1989) suggests, these cognitive
reactions may ultimately be motivated by an intention to avert
similar outcomes in the future.
Although our account is consistent with a functional perspec-
tive, we draw attention to some of the potential dysfunctional
outcomes of counterfactual thinking, especially when it focuses
on controllable antecedents (for a detailed discussion of dys-
functional aspects of counterfactuai thinking, see Sherman &
McConnell, 1995 ). For example, people may focus on control-
lable antecedents that are of little functional value in controlling
future events precisely because they are unrelated to the target
outcome over a broader focal set of cases. Consider Jones's re-
action that "if only he had taken a different route, the accident
wouldn't have occurred." Or consider Mrs. Wallace's reaction
that "if only she had pleaded with Mr. Wallace not to fly, he
would still be alive." It is true in each particular case that, had
those controllable actions happened, the negative outcomes that
occurred might have been prevented. However, accidents
caused by another reckless driver are no more likely to occur on
unusual routes than normal routes, and accidents caused by
mechanical malfunctions can happen in cars and trains as well
as planes. In other words, these controllable actions are not
likely to serve as a basis for functional behaviors in the future.
A more adaptive approach may be to focus on the set of ante-
cedents that are jointly controllable and covarying with the
target outcome.
Above and beyond not recruiting (and possibly even
obscuring) useful information in controlling future outcomes,
the counterfactual ascriptions of preventability offered in the
previous examples also point to other unwarranted attributions
and negative emotional reactions that might result from those
thoughts. For example, thinking about how one personally
could have prevented a serious negative outcome may result in
462 MANDEL AND LEHMAN
self-blame and feelings of personal responsibility where, in fact,
one's actions might have had no predictive value in foresight
(Davis, Lehman, Silver, Wortman, & Ellard, 1996). Neverthe-
less, these feelings that one could have done something may trig-
ger considerable negative affect. In terms of the distinction be-
tween self-blame and other-blame, one might expect that con-
trollable preventability ascriptions would p r o m p t the former
but not the latter. Alternatively, covariation-driven causal as-
criptions might p r o m p t either the former or the latter, depend-
ing on whose behavior was most predictive of a target outcome.
This research has focused on clarifying a distinction between
how people perceive causes versus how they perceive preventors
and on how these different types o f ascriptions relate to count-
erfactual thinking. It will be i m p o r t a n t in future research on
counterfactual thinking and attribution to delineate further the
differences between people's lay conceptions o f attributional
constructs, such as causality, preventability, blame, responsibil-
ity, intenti0nality, and motive (e.g., see Shaver, 1985; Shaver &
Drown, 1986). In particular, because most psychological ac-
counts of these constructs have their roots in philosophy, it is
important to contrast how logicians and laypersons define the
same labels. The divergences between these two systems o f
thought may provide the basis for constructing a detailed taxon-
o m y o f lay attributional constructs. In turn, this should lend
greater precision to psychological accounts o f attributional
thinking and behavior.
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Received July 27, 1995
Revision received F e b r u a r y 23, 1996
Accepted F e b r u a r y 28, 1996 •