Norm theory¶
Kahneman, D., & Miller, D. T. (1986). Norm theory: Comparing reality to its alternatives. Psychological Review, 93(2), 136-153.
Cited by¶
3 citations across 3 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Counterfactual Reasoning
- This mental simulation depends on the availability of the counterfactual (how easy is it to imagine?) and on whether the outcome was norm-violating or surprising.
This sourceDevelops norm theory and the exceptionality effect: events that easily evoke counterfactual alternatives produce stronger affective and causal responses.
- This mental simulation depends on the availability of the counterfactual (how easy is it to imagine?) and on whether the outcome was norm-violating or surprising.
- Decision
- These counterfactuals are not available before decision (all paths are live), become reasoning tools after commitment (regret, reflection, learning), and shape future decisions, a mechanism Kahneman and Miller (1986) developed in their norm-theory account of post-decision counterfactual thought.
This sourceDevelops norm theory and the cognitive mechanism of post-hoc counterfactual construction underlying regret and surprise.
- These counterfactuals are not available before decision (all paths are live), become reasoning tools after commitment (regret, reflection, learning), and shape future decisions, a mechanism Kahneman and Miller (1986) developed in their norm-theory account of post-decision counterfactual thought.
Mechanisms¶
- Counterfactual Value-Delta Table
- Its failure mode is the ease of manufacturing rows: the mind generates upward counterfactuals (how it could have been better) far more fluently than downward ones, so a naively filled table over-represents almost-wins and inflates their apparent deltas.
This sourceIt explains why upward, almost-better alternatives populate a table so much more fluently than downward escapes, and why the fluent ones must be discounted.
- Its failure mode is the ease of manufacturing rows: the mind generates upward counterfactuals (how it could have been better) far more fluently than downward ones, so a naively filled table over-represents almost-wins and inflates their apparent deltas.
Verification¶
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