Master i IT – Språk, logikk, Psykologi Jens Andreas Terum disputerer for ph.d.-graden i helsevitenskap og vil offentlig forsvare avhandlingen:
“Learning from what might have been – judgments and evaluations of counterfactual outcomes”
Kort sammendrag av avhandlingen:
People frequently stop to consider how aspect and events in their life could have been different. We may regret opportunities we failed to seize, or shudder at the thought of what might have happened “If only…”. Such thoughts are purely hypothetical, but still have an impact on how we feel, think and evaluate the world around us. Sometimes, or maybe most times, such thought seem to drift in the direction of outcomes that are the polar opposite of what actually happened. For instance, “If only I had been encouraged to keep playing” one might think, subtly hinting at a missed career in the music industry, or “It’s a miracle it all ended well“, contemplating the mischief indulged in childhood. In the present thesis, I report on research asking people to evaluate scenarios describing situations that could easily have taken a turn for the better or worse. We show that: 1) such counterfactual speculations seem to be less constrained by reality than ordinary predictions. That 2) such thoughts are affectively unimpressive, and 3) that such exaggerated thoughts about what “could have happened” do not seem to inspire caution after accidents and near-accidents.
Veiledere
Hovedveileder professor Frode Svartdal, IPS, UiT Norges arktiske universitet
Biveileder professor Karl Halvor Teigen, Psykologisk institutt, Universitetet i Oslo
Bedømmelseskomiteen
1. opponent: Professor Carl Martin Allwood, Göteborgs Universitet, Sverige
2. opponent: Professor Britt-Marie Drottz Sjøberg, NTNU
Leder av komite: Professor Tove Irene Dahl, Institutt for psykologi, UiT Norges arktiske universitet,
Disputasleder
Instituttleder Ingunn Skre IPS, UiT Norges arktiske universitet
Prøveforelesning over oppgitt emne holdes kl. 10.15, samme sted: “What experience can teach us (or not), and how?: Lessons from psychological research”