Comparative counterfactuals and moral judgments: Evidence for a more-less asymmetry
(2026) EASP Meeting – Counterfactual Thinking and its Role in Cognition and Communication — Location: Groningen, The Netherlands (16.March.2026)
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- People are more likely to consider claims true and agree with them when they express more-than rather than less-than comparisons – a phenomenon known as the more–less asymmetry, recently demonstrated also regarding counterfactual thinking about one’s own behavior. We extended this work to examine how the comparative nature of counterfactual thoughts shapes moral judgment in contexts involving victims and perpetrators. Across multiple studies, counterfactual thoughts about what victims could have done more were more impactful than thoughts about what they could have done less: participants found more-than counterfactuals more convincing and judged victims as more responsible and blameworthy than when they generated less-than counterfactuals. These effects emerged regardless of whether the victim’s prior behavior was unusual or typical and across different types of negative outcomes (i.e., thefts and accidents; Study 1, N = 159; Study 2, N = 399; Study 7, N = 400). Participants also reported greater ease of thought generation and made fewer errors when producing more-than compared to less-than counterfactuals, suggesting cognitive fluency at least in part underlying these differences. Moreover, this asymmetry generalized to judgments of perpetrators (Study 4, N = 500) and held even when the outcome caused by the perpetrator (a patient’s death following an oversight) was objectively immutable. Together, these findings demonstrate a robust asymmetry in the impact of counterfactual comparisons on moral evaluation.
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Woltin, K.-A. (2026, March 17). Comparative counterfactuals and moral judgments: Evidence for a more-less asymmetry. EASP Meeting – Counterfactual Thinking and its Role in Cognition and Communication, Groningen, The Netherlands. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/277022