Affiliation:
1. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin , Berlin , Germany
Abstract
Abstract
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic turned into a global crisis. Focusing on the deterioration in people’s mental health, we conducted two experiments, one in Germany and one in the UK, in January and February 2021, when both countries were in lockdown. Using a COVID-19-themed sentence completion task, we tested the direction of counterfactual thoughts in relation to egocentric (self-focused) versus non-egocentric (other-focused) perspective-taking. Results show that in both samples, more upward counterfactuals (mental simulation of better counterfactual worlds, relating to negative emotions) than downward counterfactuals (mental simulation of worse counterfactual worlds, relating to positive emotions) were produced in the egocentric condition. An opposite pattern was found in the non-egocentric condition. We conclude that emotions as expressed in counterfactual language are perspective-dependent.
Funder
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
Reference58 articles.
1. Allen, Mark S., Iain Greenlees & Marc V. Jones. 2014. Personality, counterfactual thinking, and negative emotional reactivity. Psychology of Sport and Exercise 15(2). 147–154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2013.10.011.
2. Allen, Mark S., Sarah J. Knipler & Amy Y. C. Chan. 2019. Happiness and counterfactual thinking at the 2016 summer Olympic Games. Journal of Sports Sciences 37(15). 1762–1769. https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2019.1592803.
3. Alzueta, Elisabet, Paul Perrin, Fiona C. Baker, Sendy Caffarra, Daniela Ramos-Usuga, Dilara Yuksel & Juan Carlos Arango-Lasprilla. 2020. How the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our lives: A study of psychological correlates across 59 countries. Journal of Clinical Psychology 77(3). 556–570. https://doi.org/10.1002/jclp.23082.
4. Anderson, Alan Ross. 1951. A note on subjunctive and counterfactual conditionals. Analysis 12(2). 35–38. https://doi.org/10.1093/analys/12.2.35.
5. Ardakani, Zahra Pooraghaei, Saber Mehri & Mohsen Parvazi Shandi. 2015. Relationship between personality dimensions and counterfactual thinking in runners in Iran’s super league in 2013–2014. Indian Journal of Fundamental and Applied Life Sciences 5(1). 5515–5521.