Jens Förster

Publications of Jens Förster

• "If only…": When counterfactual thoughts can reduce illusions of personal authorship.

  Authors: Laura Dannenberg, Jens Förster, Nils B Jostmann

  Consciousness and cognition. 12/2011; 21(1):456-63.

  Illusions of personal authorship can arise when causation for an event is ambiguous, but people mentally represent an anticipated outcome and then observe a corresponding match in reality. WhenIllusions of personal authorship can arise when causation for an event is ambiguous, but people mentally represent an anticipated outcome and then observe a corresponding match in reality. When people do not maintain such high-level outcome representations and focus instead on low-level behavioral representations of concrete actions, illusions of personal authorship can be reduced. One condition that yields specific action plans and thereby moves focus from high-level outcomes to low-level actions is the generation of counterfactual thoughts. Hence, in the present research we tested whether thinking counterfactually can reduce illusory authorship. In line with predictions, generating behavior-regulating counterfactuals reduced susceptibility to the illusion (Study 1). Importantly, this only occurred when people expected to re-encounter the situation to which the counterfactuals applied (Study 2). These findings extend existing research on the boundary conditions of illusory experiences of personal authorship and might hint at a relationship between the illusion and behavior regulation.