Cognovo research fellow Raluca Briazu presented her talk "The role of counterfactual thinking in deceptive communication" at the latest EASP small group meeting which was entitled: Counterfactual thinking in causality, emotion, communication and behaviour.
Raluca spoke about her latest experiments which have established a link between counterfactual thinking and lying. The results suggest that the tendency to imagine alternatives to the past might is associated with the ability and tendency to deceive. The results contribute to two areas of psychology. They show that counterfactual thoughts can play a functional role in day to day social interactions. Additionally, the results also highlight counterfactuals as a mechanism that supports lying. Furthermore the results contribute to the emerging discussion regarding individual differences in deception. Raluca conducted this experiment as part of her PhD project "The Role of Counterfactual Thinking in Deception".
The EASP-funded small group meeting took place in Aix-en-Provenece, France and it gathered senior academics and research students from across the world in order to discuss latest developments in the field of counterfactual thinking.