Propensities and counterfactuals: The loser that almost won

By Daniel Kahneman, C. Varey. 1990

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

Citations in the corpus

Explanation in Human-AI Systems: A Literature Meta-Review, Synopsis of Key Ideas and Publications, and Bibliography for Explainable AI (2019, background): “Additional relevant research includes: Byrne (1997; 2017); Byrne and McEleney (2000); Kahneman and Varey (1990); Halpern and Pearl (2005a,b), Hilton, McClure and Slugoski (2005); Hitchcock (2003); Hitchcock and Woodward (2003); Hoffman, et al., (2014); Khemlani and Johnson-Laird (2010); Kim,…”
Goal Setting as a Motivator of Unethical Behavior (2004, background): “…accounts) has shown that people who miss an outcome by a small amount of time (for example, miss a flight by two minutes) invoke more counterfactuals than people who miss an outcome by a large amount (miss the flight by two hours) (Johnson, 1986; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982; Kahneman & Varey, 1990).”
The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking (2008, methodology): “…“Mental simulation yields a measure of the propensity of one’s model of the situation to generate various outcomes, much as the propensities of a statistical model can be assessed by Monte Carlo techniques” (Kahneman & Tversky, 1982, p. 201; see also Kahneman, 1995; Kahneman & Varey, 1990).”
The psychology and philosophy of luck (2004, background): “For example, Kahneman and Varey (1990) have noted how counterfactual thinking is more likely if an alternative situation or outcome is perceived as being close, whether in space (e.g., a few millimetres away) or in time (a few seconds away).”
Counterfactual thinking and ascriptions of cause and preventability. (1996, background): “In line with the classic social psychological works of Lewin (1936) and Heider (1958), Kahneman and Varey (1990) argued that people perceive target outcomes as the result of the competition between opposing forces.”
The Modal Account of Luck (2014, background): “19 See Pritchard (2005, ch. 6).”