Briazu Raluca A, Walsh Clare R, Deeprose Catherine, Ganis Giorgio
School of Psychology, Cognition Institute, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK.
School of Psychology, Cognition Institute, Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK.
Cognition. 2017 Apr;161:66-73. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.003. Epub 2017 Jan 19.
This paper explores the proposal that there is a close link between counterfactual thinking and lying. Both require the imagination of alternatives to reality and we describe four studies which explore this link. In Study 1 we measured individual differences in both abilities and found that individuals with a tendency to generate counterfactual thoughts were also more likely to generate potential lies. Studies 2 and 3 showed that counterfactual availability influences people's ability to come up with lies and the extent to which they expect others to lie. Study 4 used a behavioural measure of deception to show that people tend to lie more in situations also known to elicit counterfactual thoughts. Overall, the results show that the imagination of alternatives to the past plays an important role in the generation of lies. We discuss the implications for the fields of counterfactual thinking and deception.
本文探讨了反事实思维与说谎之间存在紧密联系这一观点。两者都需要想象与现实不同的情况，我们描述了四项研究来探究这种联系。在研究1中，我们测量了这两种能力的个体差异，发现倾向于产生反事实思维的个体也更有可能编造潜在的谎言。研究2和研究3表明，反事实的可得性会影响人们编造谎言的能力以及他们预期他人说谎的程度。研究4采用了一种欺骗行为测量方法，结果表明，在已知会引发反事实思维的情境中，人们往往更容易说谎。总体而言，研究结果表明，对过去不同情况的想象在谎言编造中起着重要作用。我们讨论了这些结果对反事实思维和欺骗领域的启示。
