ANA CRISTINA MARTINS (**)

RESUMO

Macrae, Milne e Griffiths (1993) desenvolveram dois estudos no sentido de analisarem o efeito do pensamento contrafactual na percepção de crimes. Para tal, manipularam a proximidade da alternativa contra-factual (Estudo 1) e a normalidade dos antecedentes (Estudo 2) no cenário descritivo do crime. Dada a lacuna em que incorreram, lacuna por si próprios apontada, a qual se prende com o facto de não haverem medido os pensamentos dos participantes, tendo inferido, indirectamente, as suas conclusões a partir das avaliações que os mesmos fizeram dos crimes, propusemo-nos replicar o seu Estudo 2 suprimindo esta falha, ou seja, acedendo aos pensamentos dos participantes. Era esperado que na condição excepcional fosse registado um maior número de contrafactuais, uma percepção do crime como sendo mais grave, uma mais severa punição recomendada para o agente e uma maior empatia manifestada pela vítima, comparativamente à condição rotineira. Os dados infirmaram todas as nossas hipóteses, não corroborando, pois, as diferenças obtidas pelos autores revisitados. Assentando na explicação de que tais diferenças seriam devidas ao impacto da mensuração de pensamentos por nós introduzida, conduzimos um segundo estudo, réplica «integral» do original. Contudo, voltámos a não reproduzir os resultados de Macrae et al. (1993). A discussão geral é tecida em torno do modelo de geração de pensamentos contrafactuais (Roese & Olson, 1995), do papel da variável «sexo dos participantes» e das formas de mensuração de contrafactuais por listagem, levantando-se várias advertências metodológicas e novas questões de investigação no domínio.

Palavras-chave: Pensamento contrafactual, percepção de crimes, normalidade dos eventos.

ABSTRACT

Macrae, Milne and Griffiths (1993) developed two studies in order to analyse the effect of counterfactual thought on crimes' perception. They manipulated counterfactual alternative proximity (Study 1) and antecedent's normality (Study 2) in the scenario. However, they didn't measure participants' thoughts. They just inferred indirectly counterfactuals' effects from crimes' evaluations. We proposed to replicate Macrae et al.'s (1993) Study 2 measuring participants' thoughts. We expected in exceptional condition participants to generate a greater number of counterfactuals, to percept the crime as more serious, to recommend a more severe punishment to the perpetrator and do exhibit a more sympathy toward the victim. Results have infirmed all our hypotheses, not corroborating authors' findings. Anchoring on the explication that these divergences were done to our introduction of counterfactuals' measure, we've conducted a second study that was the «integral» replication of original work. Again, we didn't reproduce Macrae et al's (1993) results. General discussion is established around the model of counterfactual thought generation (Roese & Olson, 1995), the role of the participants' gender and the ways to measure counterfactuals by listing them. We also pose several methodological advertencies as well as new investigation questions in the domain.

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(*) Este estudo integra-se no projecto «Cognição e contexto no pensamento contrafactual» financiado pela FCT (SAPIENS/2001).

Nota: Qualquer questão sobre este artigo pode ser dirigida ao autor via e-mail, amartins@ispa.pt, ou correio normal para Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Rua Jardim do Tabaco, 34, 1149-041 Lisboa, Portugal.

(**) Instituto Superior de Psicologia Aplicada, Lisboa.