No. 254 - Counterfactual Thinking

In the Olympics there are gold, silver, and bronze medal winners. Who is the least happy? I'll come back to that in a moment.

Today I received this note from a friend: Here's one for your 365 blog "counterfactual thinking".

I turned to my five-year old and asked what he knew about counterfactual thinking. He responded, "I don't know, Dad. You're on your own."

I learned that counterfactual thinking is a term of psychology that describes the tendency people have to imagine alternatives to reality. Humans are predisposed to think about how things could have turned out differently if only and also to imagine what if.

It's that shoulda-woulda-coulda moment when we lament our choices or paths not taken. I should have invested in Yahoo. I should have become a doctor instead of a lawyer. I should have asked that girl to go out on a date.

Apparently there are positive outcomes from counterfactual thinking. I suppose if you think enough about the alternatives from not asking that girl on a date, one might work up the courage next time to ask her. If one broods over a speeding ticket that they would not have gotten if they were not speeding then, perhaps, next time they won't speed.

Now back to the Olympic medal question. According to a 1995 Cornell University study called When Less Is More: Counterfactual Thinking and Satisfaction Among Olympic Medalists, it was determined that the least happy medalist was the winner of the silver medal. He inevitably second guessed what he "could have" done differently to win the gold. The bronze medal winner, on the other hand, was just happy to have won a medal at all.

Often life is not so much what happens to us, but how we respond, and what we make of the hand that has been dealt to us.

You've likely heard the saying: "If life hands you lemons, make lemonade." I recently heard this fun twist on it: "If life hands you lemons, demand tequila and salt!" Now that's the spirit.