鈥淚f only鈥︹€? When counterfactual thoughts can reduce illusions of personal authorship
- 作者：Laura Dannenberg ; L.A.Dannenberg@uva.nl ; Jens Fö ; rster ; Nils B. Jostmann
- 关键词：Illusion of personal authorship ; Agency ; Counterfactual thoughts ; Outcome representation
- 刊名：Consciousness and Cognition
- 出版年：2012
- 期刊代码：127_10538100
- 类别：cp
- 出版时间：March, 2012
- 卷：21
- 期：1
- 页码：456-463
- 文件大小：272 K
摘要
Illusions of personal authorship can arise when causation for an event is ambiguous, but people mentally represent an anticipated outcome and then observe a corresponding match in reality. When people do not maintain such high-level outcome representations and focus instead on low-level behavioral representations of concrete actions, illusions of personal authorship can be reduced. One condition that yields specific action plans and thereby moves focus from high-level outcomes to low-level actions is the generation of counterfactual thoughts. Hence, in the present research we tested whether thinking counterfactually can reduce illusory authorship. In line with predictions, generating behavior-regulating counterfactuals reduced susceptibility to the illusion (Study 1). Importantly, this only occurred when people expected to re-encounter the situation to which the counterfactuals applied (Study 2). These findings extend existing research on the boundary conditions of illusory experiences of personal authorship and might hint at a relationship between the illusion and behavior regulation.