In: Psychology
What is counterfactual research and is it considered a stand alone research methodology?
The main focus comes on the utility of counterfactual analysis which helps us to validate those casual inferences in historical analysis. With an infinite number of things might happened, and even with the temptations to construct “counterfactuals of convenience” bolster one's preferred historical interpretations or political preferences, certain rules or best practices are evaluated the scientific legitimacy of counterfactuals.
The best counterfactuals start with the clear specific plausible events which involve the small and easily imaginable changes in real world.
They make very short-term predictions which on the basis of empirically validated theoretical generalizations and even on the secondary counterfactuals which might mutually be consistent. These counterfactuals also are strategic behavior which might return the history of original course, and which are explicitly tested against competing counterfactuals.... I