The what if's in life

Everyone has at some point of their life reflected back on their past behaviours or thoughts and asked themselves, ‘What might have happened if I didn’t do what I did?’ Or perhaps you’ve thought about how different your life would be if you had gone to a different university or wished that you had taken a different course of study. I know I did. Social research terms such phenomena as counterfactual thoughts.

According to Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins (2006) in the Social psychology alive textbook, counterfactual thoughts are people’s opinions on how past occurrences might have been different. They are so termed because they are the direct opposite of the facts. Most of all counterfactual thoughts have to do with how commonplace occurrences that might have turned out differently from what actually happened.

According to Kahneman and Miller (1986), counterfactual thoughts have a higher occurrence rate when the person is able to visualize how the event could have turned out differently easily without much mental struggle. Upward counterfactual thoughts are the most frequent type of counterfactual thoughts, which includes thinking about how past events, could have turned out more satisfactorily. It was noted that such thoughts usually occur after a negative outcome, where people would consider how the negative outcome could have been avoided. It is also a potential benefit when people come up with ways to prevent future occurrences of the negative outcome, which stems from people’s desire to improve themselves.

This brings back memories of the first statistics module, PY2103, I took in the first semester of my studies in JCUS. Being a ‘newbie’ in school, I was still trying to figure out life in university. It was unfortunate that I had no prior experience in statistics and could not understand what my lecturer was talking about in class. It didn’t help that I didn’t enjoy the lectures or tutorials, could fall asleep easily during lectures, and didn’t make enough effort to prepare for the mid term exam. As such, I failed my mid term exam miserably. Each time I reflected on this incident, I couldn’t help thinking that I should have approached my lecturer or other classmates for help earlier on instead of procrastinating. This was a wakeup call for me. After the exam, I managed to secure the help of a classmate, Louis, to help me with statistics. After weeks of him explaining everything the lecturer taught, including testing me to see how much I remembered and understood, I managed to pass my exam and complete the module successfully, albeit only obtaining a passing grade. Although I didn’t do as well as I would have liked to have achieved, I would probably have had to repeat the module had I not had the assistance from my helpful classmate.

From this experience, we’ve even became good friends. Thank you Louis, for all the help you’ve given me for the statistics modules =)