?It could have been you?: How states exploit counterfactual thought to market lotteries

Landman, Janet; Petty, Ross D.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1520-6793(200004)17:4<299::aid-mar3>3.0.co;2-e

Cited by 42 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Consider the example of picking the winning lottery ticket (Landman & Petty, 2000). As winners consider the endless numbers that they could have picked but did not, the fact that they did pick the winning numbers-defying the million-to-one oddsmakes their win seem all the more fated.…”

Section: Experiments 3: From What Might Have Been To What Was Meant To Bementioning

confidence: 99%

From what might have been to what must have been: Counterfactual thinking creates meaning.

Kray¹,

George²,

Liljenquist³

et al. 2010

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

148

140

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Four experiments explored whether 2 uniquely human characteristics-counterfactual thinking (imagining alternatives to the past) and the fundamental drive to create meaning in life-are causally related. Rather than implying a random quality to life, the authors hypothesized and found that counterfactual thinking heightens the meaningfulness of key life experiences. Reflecting on alternative pathways to pivotal turning points even produced greater meaning than directly reflecting on the meaning of the event itself. Fate perceptions ("it was meant to be") and benefit-finding (recognition of positive consequences) were identified as independent causal links between counterfactual thinking and the construction of meaning. Through counterfactual reflection, the upsides to reality are identified, a belief in fate emerges, and ultimately more meaning is derived from important life events.

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Section: Experiments 3: From What Might Have Been To What Was Meant To Bementioning

confidence: 99%

From what might have been to what must have been: Counterfactual thinking creates meaning.

Kray¹,

George²,

Liljenquist³

et al. 2010

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

148

140

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Criminals can do this by using techniques that trigger strong emotions at the outset. These surges of strong emotion, like other forms of distraction, serve to interfere with the victim's ability to use logical thinking [32]. Frauds also rely on he false consensus effect or the development of empathy, leading the victim to believe that he and the writer share the same expectation.…”

Section: Social Psychology and Fraudmentioning

confidence: 99%

Genre, Narrative and the "Nigerian Letter" in Electronic Mail

Cukier

Nesselroth

Cody

2007

2007 40th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS'07)

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Spam, or unsolicited email, has become an unavoidable fact of life for anyone with an email account. Spam emails generally reflect genres seen in traditional print format such as advertisements, memos, etc. One particularly interesting form of spam is the "Nigerian letter". Nigerian letters offer "get rich quick" schemes to engage recipients into advance fee fraud activities. This paper provides an empirical analysis of 111 Nigerian letters received by email to explore key elements including the use of form, purpose, and tone. We propose that the use of rich narrative appeals to strong emotions like greed, guilt and lust, and invokes archetypal myths of windfall fortunes in an effort to illicit behaviors which, for the most part, are counter-factual.

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“…There is increasing recognition of the importance of counterfactual thinking and the experience of regret in economic decisions (e.g., Inman & Zeelenberg, 2002;Landman & Petty, 2000;Tsiros & Mittal, 2000;Zeelenberg & Pieters, 2004). The process of thinking about ''what might have been'' is known as counterfactual thinking.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Regulatory mode effects on counterfactual thinking and regret

Pierro

Leder

Mannetti

et al. 2008

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

103

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The present studies examined the influence of two regulatory mode concerns—a locomotion concern with movement from state and an assessment concern with making comparisons [see Higgins, E. T., Kruglanski, A. W., & Pierro, A. (2003). Regulatory mode: Locomotion and assessment as distinct orientations. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol. 35, pp. 293–344). New York: Academic Press]—on engaging in counterfactual thinking and experiencing post-decisional regret. When contemplating a decision with a negative outcome, it was predicted that high (vs. low) locomotion would induce less counterfactual thinking and less regret, whereas the opposite would be true for high (vs. low) assessment. Locomotion and assessment orientations were measured as chronic individual differences in Study 1 and 2, and were induced experimentally in Study 3. In Study 1 and 3 a purchase scenario with a negative outcome was used to elicit counterfactuals and regret, while in Study 2 participants were asked to recall one of their own personal purchases that had a negative outcome. The results supported our predictions. We discuss the implications of these findings for the nature of counterfactual thinking and regret from the perspective of their relation to regulatory mode

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?It could have been you?: How states exploit counterfactual thought to market lotteries

Cited by 42 publications

References 41 publications

From what might have been to what must have been: Counterfactual thinking creates meaning.

From what might have been to what must have been: Counterfactual thinking creates meaning.

Genre, Narrative and the "Nigerian Letter" in Electronic Mail

Regulatory mode effects on counterfactual thinking and regret

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