Olympic medalists

In an often-cited study about counterfactuals, Medvec, Madey, and Gilovich (1995) found that bronze medalists appeared happier than silver medalists in television coverage of the 1992 Summer Olympics. Medvec et al. 1 that bronze medalists compared themselves to 4th place finishers, 2 silver medalists compared themselves to gold medalists. These counterfactuals were the most 3 because they were either qualitatively different (gold vs. silver) or categorically different (medal vs. no medal) from what 4 occurred. Drawing on archival data and experimental studies, we show that Olympic athletes (among others) are more likely to make counterfactual comparisons based on their 5 expectations, consistent with decision affect theory. Silver medalists are more likely to be disappointed because their personal expectations are higher than 6 of bronze medalists.