“If it weren’t for COVID-19…”: Counterfactual arguments influence support for climate change policies via cross-domain moral licensing or moral consistency effects

In two studies, we investigated whether counterfactual messages (i.e., “If… then…”) on the economic costs of past public policies influence support for future climate change policies. In Study 1, we tested whether the effect of upward counterfactual messages depended on their referring (or not) to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results showed lower support for a future climate change policy when the past expenses evoked by the upward counterfactual messages were attributed to COVID-19. In Study 2, we combined upward counterfactuals with downward counterfactuals presenting past economic efforts to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic as a moral credit. Results showed that exposure to downward counterfactuals decreased support for climate change policies among participants with low endorsement of anti-COVID-19 measures, whereas it increased support among participants with high endorsement. Discussion focuses on the conditions under which counterfactual communication may activate cross-dimensional moral licensing or moral consistency effects, influencing support for climate change policies.

Flexible minds make more moderate views: Subtractive counterfactuals mitigate strong views about immigrants’ trustworthiness

Public discourse on immigration has seemed to polarize over recent years—with some people strongly trusting, but others strongly distrusting immigrants. We examined whether a cognitive strategy could mitigate these biased outgroup judgments. Given that subtractive counterfactual thoughts (“If only I had not done X. . .”) facilitate cognitive flexibility and especially a relational processing style, we hypothesized that these thoughts (vs. additive counterfactuals “If only I had done X. . .” and no counterfactuals) would weaken the relationship between people’s political orientation and the perceived trustworthiness of immigrants. In five experiments (two preregistered; total N = 1,189), we found that inducing subtractive (but not additive) counterfactuals—either via rhetorical questions in a political speech or via mindset priming—had the predicted debiasing effect. Taken together, subtle means such as using subtractive counterfactual questions in political communication seem to be a promising way to reduce biased outgroup judgments in heated public debates.

The Effects of Counterfactual Attacks on the Morality and Leadership of Different Professionals

Abstract. Past research has offered contrasting results regarding the effects of attacks on social judgments. In three experiments, we investigated the effects of counterfactual (“If only…”) and non-counterfactual attacks on the morality versus leadership of politicians versus entrepreneurs. First, participants rated morality as the most desirable, but least typical dimension of politicians, and leadership as the most desirable and most typical dimension of entrepreneurs (Study 1). Then, counterfactual attacks led to poorer evaluation of the attacked target and better evaluation of the attacking source as compared to non-counterfactual attacks, especially when counterfactuals were focused on the most desirable dimension for the professional category of the attacked target (Study 2). Similar results emerged when the typicality of the attacked dimension was manipulated (Study 3). Discussion focuses on the higher success of attacks on desirable personality dimensions and of counterfactual attacks as compared to other attacks.

Facets of the Fundamental Content Dimensions: Agency with Competence and Assertiveness-Communion with Warmth and Morality

Agency (A) and communion (C) are fundamental content dimensions. We propose a facet-model that differentiates A into assertiveness (AA) and competence (AC) and C into warmth (CW) and morality (CM). We tested the model in a cross-cultural study by comparing data from Asia, Australia, Europe, and the USA (overall N = 1.808). Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses supported our model. Both the two-factor model and the four-factor model showed good fit indices across countries. Participants answered additional measures intended to demonstrate the fruitfulness of distinguishing the facets. The findings support the model's construct validity by positioning the fundamental dimensions and their facets within a network of self-construal, values, impression management, and the Big Five personality factors: In all countries, A was related to independent self-construal and to agentic values, C was related to interdependent self-construal and to communal values. Regarding the facets, AA was always related to A values, but the association of AC with A values fell below our effect size criterion in four of the five countries. A (both AA and AC) was related to agentic impression management. However, C (both CW and CM) was neither related to communal nor to agentic impression management. Regarding the Big Five personality factors, A was related to emotional stability, to extraversion, and to conscientiousness. C was related to agreeableness and to extraversion. AA was more strongly related to emotional stability and extraversion than AC. CW was more strongly related to extraversion and agreeableness than CM. We could also show that self-esteem was more related to AA than AC; and that it was related to CM, but not to CW. Our research shows that (a) the fundamental dimensions of A and C are stable across cultures; and (b) that the here proposed distinction of facets of A and C is fruitful in analyzing self-perception. The here proposed measure, the AC-IN, may be a useful tool in this research area. Applications of the facet model in social perception research are discussed.

The Effects of Counterfactual Attacks on Social Judgments

Two experiments were conducted to compare the effects of different styles of verbal criticism (factual vs. counterfactual) on the perceptions of target, source, and quality of the attack. Counterfactual attacks resulted in more negative overall judgment of the target and ratings of the target’s morality than either factual attacks or no attack. Counterfactual attacks were also rated more positively than factual attacks, and the source of the counterfactual attack was rated as being less biased against the target. Regression analyses confirmed that the observed effect on overall judgment was mediated by the perceived bias of the source. The greater effectiveness of counterfactual attacks was moderated by awareness of prior hostility of the source of the attack toward the target.