ArticleFrontiers in psychology2018
Imagining What Could Have Happened: Types and Vividness of Counterfactual Thoughts and the Relationship With Post-traumatic Stress Reactions.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed.
- Haunted by vivid 'what if' thoughts: how counterfactual thinking is associated with posttraumatic stress reactions over time.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2026Article
- Time-course evolution of counterfactual thinking after early pregnancy loss.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Maladaptive appraisals and posttraumatic stress reactions in young terror survivors across 8 years: a random intercepts cross-lagged analysis.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- Counterfactual thinking within the first year after sexual assault: examining associations with posttraumatic stress reactions in the (Norwegian) TRUST-study.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2025Article
- 'My child could have died': counterfactual thoughts and psychological distress in parents of trauma survivors.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2024Article
- The impact of coping strategies and positive resources on post-traumatic stress symptoms among bereaved families of the Sewol ferry disaster.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Individual differences in the frequency of voluntary & involuntary episodic memories, future thoughts, and counterfactual thoughts.Psychological research · 2023Article
- How am I doing compared to different standards? Comparative thinking and well-being following exposure to a vehicle-ramming attack.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2020Article
- Mechanisms Underlying Unconscious Processing and Their Alterations in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder: Neuroimaging of Zero Monetary Outcomes Contextually Framed as "No Losses" vs. "No Gains".Frontiers in neuroscience · 2020Article
- If only… a systematic review and meta-analysis of social, temporal and counterfactual comparative thinking in PTSD.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2020Review
- Long-term mental health and social support in victims of disaster: comparison with a general population sample.BJPsych open · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A growing body of research suggests that counterfactual thinking after traumatic events is associated with post-traumatic stress reactions. In this study we explored frequency of upward and downward counterfactuals in trauma-exposed individuals, and how trauma-related counterfactuals were represented in terms of vividness. We examined the relationships between vividness and frequency of counterfactual thoughts and post-traumatic stress reactions in two groups who had experienced different types of traumatic exposure, namely survivors and bereaved from the fire on the ferry Scandinavian Star in 1990. Even after 26 years, both survivors and bereaved reported that they currently entertained thoughts about what could have happened during the fire on Scandinavian Star. Survivors reported more downward counterfactuals than the bereaved, whereas the bereaved reported more upward counterfactuals than the survivors did. Vividness of counterfactual thoughts, as well as reported frequency of upward and downward counterfactuals, were associated with post-traumatic stress reactions. Our results suggest that both upward and downward counterfactuals can be harmful, and that vivid counterfactuals about a traumatic event might play a similar role in post-traumatic stress as trauma memories. Therefore, traumatized individuals who entertain counterfactual thoughts may benefit from interventions that target these thoughts specifically.
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