COUNTERFACTUAL REASONING AFTER SCHOLASTIC SUCCESS AND FAILURE

People not only ponder over the sources of events (causal attributions), but they also generate cognitions which undo antecedents of an outcome to simulate an alternative reality in which the actual event would not have happened (''counterfactual reasoning'' or ''counterfactual thinking''). N = 267 students were instructed to produce counterfactual thoughts according to scholastic success or failure. The domain-specific self-concept of ability and different subjects (German, history, mathematics, and physics) served as additional independent variables. Findings show that students produce mainly self-related counterfactuals instead of other-related counterfactuals. Students with a low domain-specific self-concept of ability in one subject produce significantly more counterfactual thoughts following failure than students with a high domain-specific self-concept of ability.