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How meditation can change your life and mind
Reaching beyond the stereotypes of meditation and embracing the science of mindfulness.
07 August, 2020
- There are a lot of misconceptions when it comes to what mindfulness is and what meditation can do for those who practice it. In this video, professors, neuroscientists, psychologists, composers, authors, and a former Buddhist monk share their experiences, explain the science behind meditation, and discuss the benefits of learning to be in the moment.
- "Mindfulness allows us to shift our relationship to our experience," explains psychologist Daniel Goleman. The science shows that long-term meditators have higher levels of gamma waves in their brains even when they are not meditating. The effect of this altered response is yet unknown, though it shows that there are lasting cognitive effects.
- "I think we're looking at meditation as the next big public health revolution," says ABC News anchor Dan Harris. "Meditation is going to join the pantheon of no-brainers like exercise, brushing your teeth and taking the meds that your doctor prescribes to you." Closing out the video is a guided meditation experience led by author Damien Echols that can be practiced anywhere and repeated as many times as you'd like.
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Pornography has been linked to easier, better orgasms in women
This study has linked female porn consumption to orgasms that are easier to achieve and more satisfying during both masturbation and partnered sex.
28 July, 2020
Photo by Oleg Elkov on Shutterstock
- A new study has linked the use of pornography to better sexual outcomes for women.
- Researchers had 2,433 women complete an anonymous survey in which they provided both demographic information and completed several assessments related to their sex lives. Both masturbation and partnered sex were taken into account.
- Studies like this can alter misconceptions about how porn impacts our relationships.
<p><a href="https://www.psypost.org/2020/05/women-who-use-pornography-more-frequently-tend-to-have-better-sexual-outcomes-study-finds-56886" target="_blank">A new study</a> has linked the use of pornography to better sexual outcomes in women. In fact, according to this new research, the use of pornography among women is associated with several positive outcomes including better orgasms that are easier to achieve.</p><p>"In this particular study, we examined whether frequency of pornography use during masturbation can predict sexual response outcomes such as difficulty reaching orgasm, latency to orgasm, and orgasmic pleasure during both masturbation and partnered sex," explains study author Sean M. McNabney.</p>
Will watching porn really make your sex life better?
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxODQwNi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTc0NDI5Mn0.PGJ3_YgS7-drKzngAz6udBhWLmKcthW12nuEgf1CghY/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C104%2C0%2C0&height=700" id="13a4e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="56f2517182c8377a4d51053522338422" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="woman in her room on her bed watching laptop" />Pornography use can be related to less difficulty becoming aroused and an easier time achieving an orgasm, according to new research.
Photo by CandyBox Images on Shutterstock
<p>In this study, researchers had 2,433 women from the United States and Hungary complete an anonymous survey, in which they provided demographic information and completed several assessments related to their sex lives. This study unearthed some very interesting observations that challenge much of the stereotypes and misconceptions people place around female porn viewing habits.</p><p><strong>Pornography use is more common in...</strong></p><p>Pornography use during masturbation was more common among pre-menopausal women, women who reported persistent anxiety or depression, non-heterosexual women, and women who had two or more partners. </p><p>Pornography use during masturbation was also more popular among American women than women from Hungary. </p><p><strong>Positive outcomes related to pornography use can include...</strong></p><p>More frequent use of pornography was related to positive outcomes during masturbation including less difficulty becoming aroused, less orgasmic difficulty, greater time to orgasm, greater orgasmic pleasure, and a higher percent of time reaching orgasm. </p><p>More frequent use of pornography for partnered sex was related to positive outcomes like less difficulty becoming aroused and greater time to orgasm. </p><p><strong>Pornography use does not negatively impact relationships as much as many people think.</strong></p><p>There was no association between pornography and sexual relationship satisfaction, which challenges the assumption that pornography is harmful to partnered sexual relationships. </p><p>More frequent pornography use was not associated with lower sexual responsivity. In fact, pornography use during masturbation predicted great ease becoming aroused during partnered sex. </p><p><strong>The missing parameters of this study are important to note.</strong></p><p>The study did not assess whether some women perceive themselves as dependent upon (or addicted to) pornography in order to achieve orgasm. This is important to note because distress resulting from pornography use may independently interfere with the female sexual response cycle. </p><p>Some other things impacted impaired sexual function in women that are worth taking note of, including lower levels of educational attainment and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Anxiety and depression were also associated with lower relationship/sexual satisfaction. </p>It’s time to rethink how porn impacts our relationships
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzUxODQwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyODQ5ODEzM30.vmZ1Tf5MAb4vAKEIInne2Wq4LkL1S3ES0J389tngp8o/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C52%2C0%2C52&height=700" id="d933d" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="276c7fcf0a11e26ed5a9ab4b6ea77d8b" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="woman in bed holding phone wearing headphones" />Audio porn is becoming more and more popular for its immersive and inclusive nature.
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<p>It's more common than ever for women to consume porn. Back in 2016, <a href="https://sofiagray.com/an-inside-look-at-female-porn-habits-what-kind-of-porn-do-women-watch/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=5d01e68d5abf31eaa6790fffed7a5ec6e0a7206e-1595926098-0-Af6EeCMMUhn8Dr2ltUceMpHzG1nC0jOcQJFiOF538eJ3iZ2gvMO3rBYkkdJaSWiXp9JeM5UmnxHknRpyqpier-zkdLWk9GCf3-C_vQ_j5f-Bn8BcBQFfoyNfU0ysK4LrWfOL9w61H_ETWgxjXogIgZNN45hii8ywWo5O7vjVw8pv5T6-4pRv9wnjcKAzVU62yua3E3pFH_dRKArrEF2OhNP7PB1KTvAnzgMMsywgcO9P-Yy5SLHrPLCZ7PnRCOgrAXnGr38CDH_8zhd0bCkMHFkDWuR9rI_T1-GTB7e2bqirzee3DbJbe_OgkV7-rhY6Rrf52ITliuzwNWUhK45NDZimEmcQWntN9irxrGu0U1-HNZO_dTUOuwJMwmnIOXr7tQ" target="_blank">the average percentage of women who consumed porn</a> was 26 percent worldwide. <a href="https://fightthenewdrug.org/how-do-men-and-womens-porn-site-searches-differ/" target="_blank">In 2018</a>, that number was much higher, with 3 out of every 10 PornHub users identifying as female.</p><p>While this may be surprising to some, it really shouldn't be considering the lengths this industry has gone to in order to become inclusive, accepting, and more appealing to people of all genders and sexual orientations.</p><p><strong>Visual porn platforms (such as PornHub) are still on top, but not for long.</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.pornhub.com/insights/2019-year-in-review" target="_blank">In 2019</a>, there were over 42 billion visits to PornHub, one of the largest visual porn platforms around. This means there was an average of 115 million visits to the website per day. Their statistics outline that the amount of content available on the site at any given time that year would have taken 169 years to watch. </p><p>Other visual pornography platforms have similar statistics, however there is a new kind of porn rising—and it's captivating the imagination of women, in particular. </p><p><strong>Audio porn is offering a more widely accepted, inclusive, and all-encompassing approach to sexual health and happiness. </strong></p><p>"Audio porn" has been around for longer than you may realize, with the first phone sex line being <a href="http://www.nathanaelwolfe.com/stellaresults/" target="_blank">launched in 1977</a> by Gloria Leonard. The 2010s saw a rise in audio porn, with platforms like <a href="https://www.tryquinn.com/" target="_blank">Quinn</a> and <a href="https://www.dipseastories.com/" target="_blank">Dipsea</a> breaking onto the pornography scene in a big way. Now, in 2020, platforms like <a href="https://audiodesires.com/" target="_blank">Audiodesires</a>, <a href="https://www.voxxx.org/" target="_blank">Voxxx</a>, and more are following suit. </p><p>Audio porn offers a more in-depth, immersive, imaginative experience for women who previously found visual sex to be off-putting, offensive, or crude. More than that, it's making the concept of pornography more "acceptable" and appreciated in mainstream media, with more attention being paid to these new platforms from sources like <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/tried-quinn-audio-porn-website-180410453.html" target="_blank">Yahoo</a> and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/style/audio-porn-erotica-quinn-dipsea.html" target="_blank">New York Times</a>. </p><p><strong>Studies like this can alter misconceptions about how porn impacts our relationships. </strong></p><p>"Some readers may be relieved to learn that pornography use is fairly common among women and is unlikely to interfere with sexual functioning during partnered relationships. Other variables such as ongoing anxiety/depression or sexual relationship dissatisfaction appear to more consistently predict sexual problems," said McNabney. </p>
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How beards put a brave face on threatened masculinity
A general reorganisation of masculine norms interrupted the shaving-respectability regime.
25 July, 2020
Walt Whitman photographed by Brady Handy (Wikimedia Commons)
In the West, for many centuries, shaving has identified a good man properly oriented to a higher order, whether divine or political.
<p> Defying this regulation meant being ostracised. But on occasion, a general reorganisation of masculine norms has interrupted the shaving-respectability regime.</p><p>Alexander the Great established shaving as the ideal in Greco-Roman civilisation when he imitated classical depictions of eternally youthful gods. Though there was a brief resurgence of beards inspired by Roman emperors, the Alexandrian style held well beyond the Empire's fall. In medieval centuries, men of the Church made the tonsured head and shaved face marks of holiness and goodness, going so far as to inscribe these practices into canon law. Laymen followed suit, cutting back their beards to be worthy in the sight of God and man. After Renaissance men embraced hairy nature over holy shaving, beards were again curtailed by new codes of gentility enforced by royal courts, which had effectively replaced the Church as guardians of the moral order. </p><p>The breakdown of the clean-shaven order in the middle of the 19th century offers a valuable comparison with our own day. At that time, men on both sides of the Atlantic had new reasons to boast, but to also feel uneasy, about their status as men. Revolutions in Europe and the United States declared the rights of man, investing power in a sex, rather than a class. This gave men reason to assert their manhood with pride and, as one might expect, the most radical republicans and socialists were also the most enthusiastically bearded. By the middle of the century, the decline of radicalism uncoupled the link between radicalism and facial hair, allowing men of all classes and persuasions to assert their manly pride. No one expressed this new spirit more vibrantly than Walt Whitman, whose 1855 hymn to physical vitality, 'Song of Myself', declared 'Washes and razors for foofoos … for me freckles and a bristling beard.' Copies of the poem were sold with a full-length drawing of the poet, to show him true to his word.</p>
<p>As Whitman suggested, beards were liberating and empowering, and were accordingly embraced by men of every rank, from patricians to day labourers. Behind this pride, however, there was an undercurrent of worry. Even as the male sex was granted higher political status, masculine dominance was challenged by nascent feminism in both the private and public spheres. This challenge reinforced men's determination to abandon razors. Those who championed beards praised them for establishing an unimpeachable physical contrast between men and women that demonstrates male superiority. The authors of a <a href="http://www.djo.org.uk/media/downloads/articles/2340_Why%20Shave.pdf" target="_blank">manifesto for facial hair</a>, written in 1853, argued that nature assigned to women 'attributes of grace heightened by physical weakness', and to man 'attributes of dignity and strength'. Men's work, they insisted, is outdoors in wind and weather, and nature provides them suitable protection. Women's work is of a different order.</p><p>The problem with this line of argument was that, even in the 1850s, the London journalists who penned these words were hardly outdoorsmen in need of beards to guard them from the tempests of Fleet Street. Yet this was precisely the appeal of the beard to urban men both then and now. Disconnection from nature and the increasing irrelevance of physical strength, along with the gradual rise of women in public life, threatened to destabilise common understandings of manliness at the very moment when manhood had achieved new political status. Facial hair served as a tangible symbol of gender difference that was in danger of becoming intangible. It is fair to say that a beard made the man.</p>
<p>Like the 1850s, today there is a renewed gender uncertainty that erupts in peaceful times when older constructions of manliness lose relevance. Then as now, war was limited and distant, and not available as a universal definition of masculine purpose. In the 1850s, the athletic ideal was in its infancy. In our time, sports have become so pervasive that they have begun to lose their specific association with masculinity. Even more than in the 1850s, it has proven difficult to police the boundary between the masculine and the feminine. Politics, business, sports, war, even masculinity itself, are no longer unchallenged male preserves. People born female are asserting their claim to be men, whether altered by surgery or not. Still others are declaring they have no sex or gender at all. Some men have navigated this fluid environment with remarkable aplomb. David Beckham openly embraces his 'feminine', fashion-conscious side, while at the same time always sporting a masculinising beard. With facial hair, he can have an effective physical presentation of contemporary manliness.</p><p>As they did in the 1850s, men of every region, race, class and political persuasion are again growing beards to declare the reality of masculinity, as well as their own masculine identity. While there is diminished confidence that nature has conferred upon men any particular quality or status, it might be enough for most to simply establish that they are indeed men, whatever that might entail. Like his 19th-century forebears, a bearded man today demonstrates both masculine vulnerability and pride. His status might be contested, but he puts on a brave face.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/b2ef0675-a95d-48df-b9e9-25beedae8f01.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>Christopher R Oldstone-Moore</p><p>This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/how-beards-put-a-brave-face-on-threatened-masculinity" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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How Camus and Sartre split up over the question of how to be free
If the idea of freedom bound Camus and Sartre philosophically, then the fight for justice united them politically.
19 July, 2020
Mario Tama/Getty Images
They were an odd pair. Albert Camus was French Algerian, a pied-noir born into poverty who effortlessly charmed with his Bogart-esque features.
<p> Jean-Paul Sartre, from the upper reaches of French society, was never mistaken for a handsome man. They met in Paris during the Occupation and grew closer after the Second World War. In those days, when the lights of the city were slowly turning back on, Camus was Sartre's closest friend. 'How we loved you then,' Sartre later wrote.</p><p>They were gleaming icons of the era. Newspapers reported on their daily movements: Sartre holed up at Les Deux Magots, Camus the peripatetic of Paris. As the city began to rebuild, Sartre and Camus gave voice to the mood of the day. Europe had been immolated, but the ashes left by war created the space to imagine a new world. Readers looked to Sartre and Camus to articulate what that new world might look like. 'We were,' remembered the fellow philosopher Simone de Beauvoir, 'to provide the postwar era with its ideology.'</p><p>It came in the form of existentialism. Sartre, Camus and their intellectual companions rejected religion, staged new and unnerving plays, challenged readers to live authentically, and wrote about the absurdity of the world – a world without purpose and without value. '[There are] only stones, flesh, stars, and those truths the hand can touch,' Camus wrote. We must choose to live in this world and to project our own meaning and value onto it in order to make sense of it. This means that people are <em>free</em> and burdened by it, since with freedom there is a terrible, even debilitating, responsibility to live and act authentically.</p><p>If the idea of freedom bound Camus and Sartre philosophically, then the fight for justice united them politically. They were committed to confronting and curing injustice, and, in their eyes, no group of people was more unjustly treated than the workers, the proletariat. Camus and Sartre thought of them as shackled to their labour and shorn of their humanity. In order to free them, new political systems must be constructed.</p>
<p>In October 1951, Camus published <em>The Rebel</em>. In it, he gave voice to a roughly drawn 'philosophy of revolt'. This wasn't a philosophical system <em>per se</em>, but an amalgamation of philosophical and political ideas: every human is free, but freedom itself is relative; one must embrace limits, moderation, 'calculated risk'; absolutes are anti-human. Most of all, Camus condemned revolutionary violence. Violence might be used in extreme circumstances (he supported the French war effort, after all) but the use of revolutionary violence to nudge history in the direction you desire is utopian, absolutist, and a betrayal of yourself.</p><p>'Absolute freedom is the right of the strongest to dominate,' Camus wrote, while 'absolute justice is achieved by the suppression of all contradiction: therefore it destroys freedom.' The conflict between justice and freedom required constant re-balancing, political moderation, an acceptance and celebration of that which limits the most: our humanity. 'To live and let live,' he said, 'in order to create what we are.'</p><p>Sartre read <em>The Rebel </em>with disgust. As far as he was concerned, it <em>was</em> possible to achieve perfect justice and freedom – that described the achievement of communism. Under capitalism, and in poverty, workers could not be free. Their options were unpalatable and inhumane: to work a pitiless and alienating job, or to die. But by removing the oppressors and broadly returning autonomy to the workers, communism allows each individual to live without material want, and therefore to choose how best they can realise themselves. This makes them free, and through this unbending equality, it is also just.</p><p>The problem is that, for Sartre and many others on the Left, communism required revolutionary violence to achieve because the existing order must be smashed. Not all leftists, of course, endorsed such violence. This division between hardline and moderate leftists – broadly, between communists and socialists – was nothing new. The 1930s and early '40s, however, had seen the Left temporarily united against fascism. With the destruction of fascism, the rupture between hardline leftists willing to condone violence and moderates who condemned it returned. This split was made all the more dramatic by the practical disappearance of the Right and the ascendancy of the Soviet Union – which empowered hardliners throughout Europe, but raised disquieting questions for communists as the horrors of gulags, terror and show trials came to light. The question for every leftist of the postwar era was simple: which side are you on?</p>
<p>
With the publication of <em>The Rebel</em>, Camus declared for a peaceful socialism that would not resort to revolutionary violence. He was appalled by the stories emerging from the USSR: it was not a country of hand-in-hand communists, living freely, but a country with no freedom at all. Sartre, meanwhile, would fight for communism, and he was prepared to endorse violence to do so.
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The split between the two friends was a media sensation. <em>Les Temps Modernes </em>– the journal edited by Sartre, which published a critical review of<em> The Rebel </em>– sold out three times over. <em>Le Monde </em>and <em>L'Observateur </em>both breathlessly covered the falling out. It's hard to imagine an intellectual feud capturing that degree of public attention today, but, in this disagreement, many readers saw the political crises of the times reflected back at them. It was a way of seeing politics played out in the world of ideas, and a measure of the worth of ideas. If you are thoroughly committed to an idea, are you compelled to kill for it? What price for justice? What price for freedom?
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Sartre's position was shot through with contradiction, with which he struggled for the remainder of his life. Sartre, the existentialist, who said that humans are condemned to be free, was also Sartre, the Marxist, who thought that history does not allow much space for true freedom in the existential sense. Though he never actually joined the French Communist Party, he would continue to defend communism throughout Europe until 1956, when the Soviet tanks in Budapest convinced him, finally, that the USSR did not hold the way forward. (Indeed, he was dismayed by the Soviets in Hungary because they were acting like Americans, he said.) Sartre would remain a powerful voice on the Left throughout his life, and chose the French president Charles de Gaulle as his favourite whipping boy. (After one particularly vicious attack, de Gaulle was asked to arrest Sartre. 'One does not imprison Voltaire,' he responded.) Sartre remained unpredictable, however, and was engaged in a long, bizarre dalliance with hardline Maoism when he died in 1980. Though Sartre moved away from the USSR, he never completely abandoned the idea that revolutionary violence might be warranted.
</p><iframe title="vimeo-player" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/201881771" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe><p>
The violence of communism sent Camus on a different trajectory. 'Finally,' he wrote in <em>The Rebel</em>, 'I choose freedom. For even if justice is not realised, freedom maintains the power of protest against injustice and keeps communication open.' From the other side of the Cold War, it is hard not to sympathise with Camus, and to wonder at the fervour with which Sartre remained a loyal communist. Camus's embrace of sober political reality, of moral humility, of limits and fallible humanity, remains a message well-heeded today. Even the most venerable and worthy ideas need to be balanced against one another. Absolutism, and the impossible idealism it inspires, is a dangerous path forward – and the reason Europe lay in ashes, as Camus and Sartre struggled to envision a fairer and freer world.<img src="https://metrics.aeon.co/count/d5f97bbd-d975-4075-839b-51bc83628eb4.gif" alt="Aeon counter – do not remove"></p><p>
This article was originally published at <a href="https://aeon.co/?utm_campaign=republished-article" target="_blank">Aeon</a> and has been republished under Creative Commons. Read the <a href="https://aeon.co/ideas/how-camus-and-sartre-split-up-over-the-question-of-how-to-be-free" target="_blank">original article</a>.</p>
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What is counterfactual thinking?
Can thinking about the past really help us create a better present and future?
14 July, 2020
Jacob Lund / Shutterstock
- There are two types of counterfactual thinking: upward and downward.
- Both upward and downward counterfactual thinking can be positive impacts on your current outlook - however, upward counterfactual thinking has been linked with depression.
- While counterfactual thinking is a very normal and natural process, experts suggest the best course is to focus on the present and future and allow counterfactual thinking to act as a motivator when possible.
<p><em>"To some extent, your life can be thought of as the sum of the choices you have made. Of course, some choices are better than others. Looking back at past decisions (i.e., engaging in counterfactual thinking) is only natural in humans." </em>- <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201809/the-psychology-what-if" target="_blank">Psychology Today</a></p><ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
“Upward” versus “downward” counterfactual thinking
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ1NDYxOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0NDM2MDY2OX0.njWs1qrV1vDBxU1V75tUduUW4TjJvEHglDWsK8ZF2l4/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C556%2C0%2C209&height=700" id="a15fa" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="98314d4d2b256ed08f42d369fe4ae080" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="concept of man thinking about the past one line drawing counterfactual thinking" />What are upward and downward counterfactual thinking?
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<p><strong>What is upward counterfactual thinking?</strong></p><p>Upward counterfactual thinking happens when we look at a scenario and ask ourselves "what if" in terms of how our life could have turned out better. </p><p>Examples of upward counterfactual thinking are: </p><ul><li><em>"I wish I had taken that other job instead of this one 10 years ago - my life would be so much better if I had." </em></li><li><em>"I wish I would have gotten the part in that high school play, maybe I could have gotten into a theatre school and became an actor…"</em> </li></ul><p>Both of these examples have the ideology that if you had made different choices, your life right now would be improved. </p><p><strong>What is downward counterfactual thinking?</strong></p><p>Downward counterfactual thinking is, naturally, the opposite of upward counterfactual thinking in that we think about how things could have been worse if other decisions had been made. </p><p>Examples of downward counterfactual thinking are: </p><ul><li><em>"I'm so thankful I studied secondary education in university instead of psychology like I had originally planned - I love teaching high school kids and I never would have gotten to do that…" </em></li><li><em>"I'm so happy I left David when I got the chance, I can't imagine still being in an unhappy marriage with someone who doesn't support me…"</em> </li></ul><p>In these examples, we see the idea that if you had made different choices your life would not be as good as it is right now. </p>How counterfactual thinking can impact your life
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQ1NDYxNy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNjI2MDQxOX0.DIVQ-Yk0d6yE3tc743MH1Fz2pOg1TGHLmhp8dPp9UdY/img.jpg?width=1245&coordinates=0%2C0%2C0%2C0&height=700" id="522d7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="da7df6ad916b043e3610223900d0f8df" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" alt="man thinking what if written on chalkboard" />How do upward and downward counterfactual thinking impact your life?
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<p>While many people don't see the point in "what if" scenarios, various studies have found that downward counterfactual thinking can be more associated with psychological health compared with upward counterfactual thinking. Not only that, but research has also shown upward counterfactual thinking can be linked with current and future depression.</p> <p><strong>Downward counterfactual thinking tends to be more associated with psychological health </strong></p><p>According to a <a href="http://journal.sjdm.org/jdm06136.pdf" target="_blank">2000 study</a>, downward counterfactual thinking can be linked with better psychological health compared to upward counterfactual thinking. More importantly, in cases where downward counterfactual thinking did lead to negative feelings, those feelings acted as something of a motivator for people to take productive actions to better their current situation. </p> <p><strong>Upward counterfactual thinking tends to be more associated with depression </strong></p><p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0272735816301714#:~:text=An%20upward%20counterfactual%20(as%20opposed,Markman%20and%20McMullen%2C%202003)." target="_blank">According to a 2017 study</a> that pooled a sample of over 13,000 respondents, thoughts about "better outcomes" and regret (upward counterfactual thinking) were associated with current and future depression. </p> <p><strong>Downward counterfactual thinking can actually improve your relationships and is more often engaged in by women than men.</strong></p><p>In a <a href="https://dspace.sunyconnect.suny.edu/bitstream/handle/1951/67589/Studer_Thesis.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y" target="_blank">2016 research paper submitted</a> to the Department of Psychology at the State University of New York at New Paltz, downward counterfactual thinking in regards to romantic relationships was associated with relatively positive relationship outcomes. Interestingly, women were more likely than men to engage in downward counterfactual thinking about their romantic life. </p> <p><strong>Upward counterfactual thinking can have some benefits in certain scenarios. </strong></p><p>When we look back after a failed test and think "I wish I would have studied more" - this motivates us to study harder the next time a test comes up. In this way, upward counterfactual thinking (or the negative version of "what if") can actually benefit us. </p> <p><strong>This can be difficult, though, because much of the time upward counterfactual thinking is more associated with a pessimistic outlook that can be unmotivating. </strong></p> <p>Thinking in the past tense can be motivational (and even healthy) at times, but the best thing to do is look forward. </p><p>While counterfactual thinking as a whole can be used to motivate us to make better choices or appreciate where we are in life, <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201809/the-psychology-what-if" target="_blank">this Psychology Today</a> article suggests that we should come up with ways to move on and focus on the present and the future instead of the past. Using counterfactual thinking as a motivational tool can be very helpful if we don't get stuck in the "what if" mindset that tends to pull us out of the present and back into the past, where things will always remain the same. </p>
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