Abstract
Can we feel that an unrealized outcome nearly happened if it was never possible in the first place? People often consider counterfactual events that did not happen, and some counterfactuals seem so close to reality that people say they “almost” or “easily could have” happened. Across four preregistered experiments (total N = 1,228), we investigated how judgments of counterfactual closeness depend on possibility, and whether this varies across two kinds of close counterfactuals. In judging whether outcomes almost happened, participants were more strongly impacted by possibility than by incremental manipulations of probability. In contrast, when judging whether outcomes easily could have happened, participants treated the distinction between impossible and possible like any other variation in probability. Both kinds of judgments were also impacted by propensity, though these effects were comparatively small. Together, these findings reveal novel differences between the two kinds of close counterfactuals and suggest that while possibility is privileged when judging what almost happened, probability is the focus when judging what easily could have happened.
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Notes
Strictly, hitting a hole-in-one into a hole filled with cement might not be impossible – while this outcome violates our physical laws, for all we know, these laws could change. Even so, most people may not see things this way, and may instead see violations of physical and biological laws as impossible. For example, people mostly deny that a person could walk through a wall or make a car vanish into thin air (e.g., Goulding & Friedman, 2023; Phillips & Cushman, 2017; Shtulman, 2009; Shtulman & Carey, 2007). These findings are not decisive though. For example, respondents could have interpreted questions about possibility as referring to events occurring in local contexts (i.e., where familiar physical and biological laws operate).
In examining Fig. 1, it might seem odd that Easily judgments were not at floor even when winning with the target shape was impossible. However, participants likely recognized that the contestant could have won with other shapes on their scratch card. Findings from one of the extra trials (included to add variability to the outcomes) support this interpretation. In that trial, winning was outright impossible – there was no way to scratch four matching shapes (i.e., the contestant scratched two hearts, one clover, and one star, and the remaining shapes were one heart, two clovers, and one star). Easily ratings were 1.50 on the 1–7 scale, and Almost ratings were 1.96. Experiment 2 also includes this trial, and there, Easily ratings were 1.54 and Almost ratings were 1.74.
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Doan, T., Denison, S. & Friedman, O. Close counterfactuals and almost doing the impossible. Psychon Bull Rev 31, 187–195 (2024). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02335-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-023-02335-w