The Effect of Counterfactual Thinking on Value Spread

As previous studies have shown, an association between chosen and unchosen options can form in our memory during deliberation. This association influences not only our perception of the chosen option's value but the inferred value of the unchosen options. While numerous studies have explored the generalization of learned values of chosen options, few have investigated how inferred values of unchosen options spread. This study bridges the gap between associative memory and decision-making by investigating how thinking about the alternatives shapes the spread of inferred value of unchosen options. It demonstrates that the perceived value of unchosen options acquires an inverse value based on the outcome associated with the learned options and can generalize to similar-but-novel options.