All Stories

  1. Undoing death: Counterfactual thinking and emotional adaptation to bereavement

    Article • Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, September 2026, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  2. Passing the Torch: Reflections on 3 Years at the Helm of the EJSP

    Article • European Journal of Social Psychology, May 2026, Wiley

    Kai Epstude

  3. If only I had not fallen down the rabbit hole: Counterfactual thinking reduces engagement with conspiracy theories

    Article • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, March 2026, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  4. When are leaders blamed for bad events that never happened? Partisanship and close counterfactual catastrophes

    Article • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, March 2026, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  5. Lay Attributions of Conspiracy Beliefs Predict Intentions to Correct Conspiracy Believers

    Article • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, February 2026, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  6. Emotion-regulation strategy use and commitment to a performance goal: the role of reappraisal tactics

    Article • Motivation and Emotion, February 2026, Springer Science + Business Media

    Kai Epstude

  7. Do We Regret Group Actions More Than Group Inactions?

    Article • Social Psychology, July 2025, Hogrefe Publishing Group

    Kai Epstude

  8. Multiple goal salience and emotion regulation in negative-feedback situations: A latent profile analysis

    Article • Personality and Individual Differences, June 2025, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  9. A Gentle Introduction and Application of Feature-Based Clustering with Psychological Time Series

    Article • Multivariate Behavioral Research, December 2024, Taylor & Francis

    Kai Epstude

  10. Motivated Counterfactual Thinking and Moral Inconsistency: How We Use Our Imaginations to Selectively Condemn and Condone

    Article • Current Directions in Psychological Science, April 2024, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  11. Continuity and change

    Article • European Journal of Social Psychology, April 2024, Wiley

    Kai Epstude

  12. Whether and how to regulate: Emotion regulation in negative-feedback situations.

    Article • Journal of Experimental Psychology General, March 2024, American Psychological Association (APA)

    Felix Grundmann, Kai Epstude

  13. When do conspiracy theories shape behavioural intentions? The moderating role of the need to evaluate

    Article • Personality and Individual Differences, February 2024, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  14. Source credibility effects in misinformation research: A review and primer

    Article • advances in/psychology, January 2024, Advances.in

    Kai Epstude

  15. Need Fulfillment During Intergroup Contact: Three Experience Sampling Studies

    Article • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, November 2023, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  16. The Migration Experience: A Conceptual Framework and Systematic Scoping Review of Psychological Acculturation

    Article • Personality and Social Psychology Review, August 2023, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  17. Should I have been more careful or less careless? The comparative nature of counterfactual thoughts alters judgments of their impact

    Article • Cognition, June 2023, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  18. Empathising with masked targets: limited side effects of face masks on empathy for dynamic, context-rich stimuli

    Article • Cognition & Emotion, April 2023, Taylor & Francis

    Kai Epstude

  19. When Do Conspiracy Theories Shape Behavioural Intentions? The Moderating Role of the Need to Evaluate

    Article • January 2023, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  20. Polarized imagination: partisanship influences the direction and consequences of counterfactual thinking

    Article • Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences, October 2022, Royal Society Publishing

    Kai Epstude

  21. Motivational consequences of counterfactual mindsets: Does counterfactual structure influence the use of conservative or risky tactics?

    Article • Motivation and Emotion, September 2022, Springer Science + Business Media

    Kai Epstude

  22. Grandiose narcissism shapes counterfactual thinking (and regret): Direct and indirect evidence

    Article • Journal of Research in Personality, August 2022, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  23. Upward and Downward Counterfactual Thought After Loss: A Multiwave Controlled Longitudinal Study

    Article • Behavior Therapy, May 2021, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  24. Recognizing feelings in masked faces

    Article • PLOS One, April 2021, PLOS

    Felix Grundmann, Kai Epstude

  25. When Ignoring Negative Feedback Is Functional: Presenting a Model of Motivated Feedback Disengagement

    Article • Current Directions in Psychological Science, November 2020, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  26. Face masks reduce emotion-recognition accuracy and perceived closeness

    Article • October 2020, Center for Open Science

    Kai Epstude

  27. Dispositional optimism weakly predicts upward, rather than downward, counterfactual thinking: A prospective correlational study using episodic recall

    Article • PLOS One, August 2020, PLOS

    Kai Epstude

  28. Old Tasks and New Urgency

    Article • Social Psychology, July 2020, Hogrefe Publishing Group

    Kai Epstude

  29. Friends or foes? How activists and non-activists perceive and evaluate each other

    Article • PLOS One, April 2020, PLOS

    Maja Kutlaca, Kai Epstude

  30. Having pity on our victims to save ourselves: Compassion reduces self-critical emotions and self-blame about past harmful behavior among those who highly identify with their past self

    Article • PLOS One, December 2019, PLOS

    Kai Epstude

  31. Call for Nominations for Editor-in-Chief of Social Psychology

    Article • Social Psychology, November 2019, Hogrefe Publishing Group

    Kai Epstude

  32. A Longitudinal Study of Decision Making in the Process of Acquiring a Dog

    Article • Anthrozoös, June 2019, Taylor & Francis

    Kai Epstude

  33. Moving Ahead

    Article • Social Psychology, January 2018, Hogrefe Publishing Group

    Kai Epstude

  34. Collective action against human-caused earthquakes

    Article • Environment and Behavior, December 2017, SAGE Publications

    Maja Kutlaca, Kai Epstude

  35. Do episodic counterfactual thoughts focus on controllable action?: The role of self-initiation

    Article • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, November 2017, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  36. Towards a Replicable and Relevant Social Psychology

    Article • Social Psychology, January 2017, Hogrefe Publishing Group

    Kai Epstude

  37. The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking: New Evidence, New Challenges, New Insights

    Article • January 2017, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  38. Calendars Matter: Temporal Categories Affect Cognition about Future Time Periods

    Article • Social Cognition, August 2016, Guilford Publications

    Kai Epstude

  39. Preaching to, or Beyond, the Choir

    Article • Social Psychology, January 2016, Hogrefe Publishing Group

    Kai Epstude

  40. Prefactual thoughts: Mental simulations about what might happen.

    Article • Review of General Psychology, January 2016, American Psychological Association (APA)

    Kai Epstude

  41. Life Regret andSehnsucht

    Article • December 2015, Wiley

    Kai Epstude

  42. Regret and if-only thoughts in HIV+ individuals

    Article • Social Psychological and Personality Science, August 2014, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  43. Driving with music: Effects on arousal and performance

    Article • Transportation Research Part F Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, November 2013, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  44. Individual differences in nostalgia proneness: The integrating role of the need to belong

    Article • Personality and Individual Differences, November 2013, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  45. Blocking-out auditory distracters while driving: A cognitive strategy to reduce task-demands on the road

    Article • Accident Analysis & Prevention, January 2013, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  46. The influence of music on mental effort and driving performance

    Article • Accident Analysis & Prevention, September 2012, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  47. Mental time travel: A conceptual overview of social psychological perspectives on a fundamental human capacity

    Article • European Journal of Social Psychology, March 2012, Wiley

    Kai Epstude

  48. Life Regrets and the Need to Belong

    Article • Social Psychological and Personality Science, February 2012, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  49. Seeing love, or seeing lust: How people interpret ambiguous romantic situations

    Article • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, September 2011, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  50. When Goal Pursuit Fails

    Article • Social Psychology, January 2011, Hogrefe Publishing Group

    Kai Epstude

  51. Fast similarities: Efficiency advantages of similarity-focused comparisons.

    Article • Journal of Experimental Psychology Learning Memory and Cognition, January 2011, American Psychological Association (APA)

    Kai Epstude

  52. Functional Aspects of Global Versus Local Processing: Relations Among the Structure and Content of Goals, Counterfactuals, and Regrets

    Article • Psychological Inquiry, August 2010, Taylor & Francis

    Kai Epstude

  53. How love and lust change people’s perception of relationship partners

    Article • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, March 2010, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  54. Hindsight bias redefined: It’s about time

    Article • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, September 2009, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  55. Why Love Has Wings and Sex Has Not: How Reminders of Love and Sex Influence Creative and Analytic Thinking

    Article • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, August 2009, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  56. What you feel is how you compare: How comparisons influence the social induction of affect.

    Article • Emotion, January 2009, American Psychological Association (APA)

    Kai Epstude

  57. Relatively fast! Efficiency advantages of comparative thinking.

    Article • Journal of Experimental Psychology General, January 2009, American Psychological Association (APA)

    Kai Epstude

  58. The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking

    Article • Personality and Social Psychology Review, May 2008, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  59. Beyond rationality: Counterfactual thinking and behavior regulation

    Article • Behavioral and Brain Sciences, December 2007, Cambridge University Press

    Kai Epstude

  60. Alpha-band activity reflects reduction of mental effort in a comparison task: A source space analysis

    Article • Brain Research, November 2006, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  61. Overlapping Mental Representations of Self, Ingroup, and Outgroup: Unraveling Self-Stereotyping and Self-Anchoring

    Article • Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, July 2006, SAGE Publications

    Kai Epstude

  62. The man who wasn't there: Subliminal social comparison standards influence self-evaluation

    Article • Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, September 2004, Elsevier

    Kai Epstude

  63. The Ups and Downs of Social Comparison: Mechanisms of Assimilation and Contrast.

    Article • Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, January 2004, American Psychological Association (APA)

    Kai Epstude