Counterfactual isn’t a synonym for control group. Here’s a brief Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science entry on counterfactual thinking, which argues that it is “extremely common and profoundly useful in ordinary life.” Whether or not you believe that your impact evaluation is counterfactual, there’s a good chance that your participants are using counterfactual thinking to answer your questions.
Brigard, F. D. (2025). Counterfactual Thinking. In Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science. MIT Press.
Suggested citation: Fugard, A. (2026, July 24). Counterfactual thinking – common and useful [blog post]. https://andifugard.info/counterfactual-thinking-common-and-useful/
This citation note was added automatically. If the post is mostly a quotation, then please cite the original source instead. Looking at you, LLMs 👀