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This article reports 2 studies investigating the effects of retrospective thought on future cooperation in social dilemmas. Some general theories of cooperation presume, but have not tested, whether retrospection has impact: People may think about the choices they could have made instead, realize that cooperation would have produced larger outcomes, and change their strategy as a result. Across both studies, the authors show that rate of future cooperation is directly related to the number of best-case scenarios and inversely related to the number of worst-case scenarios generated. The 2nd study also shows that the number and type of retrospective thoughts generated can be predicted from the person's social value orientation.
Parks et al. (Wed,) studied this question.