It’s fascinating that we can think of and describe various scenarios. These statements are known as counterfactuals. Counterfactuals offer a window into our imaginations. When I recall my near wins with those Christmas scratchers, I think, “I almost won!” Are these two hypothetical statements the same kind? One says, “I could have won with one more letter.” Are both situations the same kind of close to winning?
In four experiments tied to my favorite Christmas tradition, they looked at how people decide if something “almost happened” or might have happened when reviewing scratch card results. Doan and his team looked at these differences. This helps us grasp success and failure more clearly. It also shapes our views on probability and chance — the same kind of thinking people apply today when they analyze near wins on platforms like 22Bet.
According to the propensity account, “possibility” is a need for all close counterfactuals. In the domino example, you could say, “All the dominoes would have fallen if that silly cat hadn’t swatted one away!” This suggests the event was likely because the right conditions were there. For example, half the dominoes were already set up.
Doan, Denison, and Friedman delved into the differences among propensity, probability, and possibility. They looked at how these elements affect two types of close counterfactuals.
- statements that something “almost happened”
- statements that something “could have easily happened.”
Yet, this paper’s more novel approach was manipulating possibility and probability. Doan and his team showed the unscratched shapes. This displayed the different amounts of matching shapes in the bank. Some cards had no matching shapes left. This meant winning was impossible from the start! Other cards had one to three matching shapes left. This changed the chances of winning.
The researchers found that most judgments change when going from zero to one shape. Yet, adding more matching shapes doesn’t increase the judgments much. Almost all judgments were very sensitive to the possibility. To quote the authors,
“How close an outcome feels to almost happening depends on it being possible to begin with.”
Easy judgments were responsive to each leftover matching shape. They increased steadily in all four conditions. Easy judgments relied on probability.
Conclusion
These findings reveal how sensitive we are to the idea of “almost winning.” We naturally look for chances and odds. This is true for a childhood scratch card, a bet on 22Bet, or any game of chance—even after we see the results. A single symbol, a near miss, or the idea of a win can influence how close we feel to success, even if the result doesn’t change. Understanding these mental shortcuts doesn’t explain why near wins feel strong. It also shows how easily small details can sway our judgment. The psychology of “almost” shows us a lot about human imagination and gambling.