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Children's Thinking About Counterfactuals and Future Hypotheticals as Possibilities
Author(s) -
Beck Sarah R.,
Robinson Elizabeth J.,
Carroll Daniel J.,
Apperly Ian A.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00879.x
Subject(s) - counterfactual thinking , counterfactual conditional , psychology , event (particle physics) , cognitive psychology , social psychology , developmental psychology , physics , quantum mechanics
Two experiments explored whether children's correct answers to counterfactual and future hypothetical questions were based on an understanding of possibilities. Children played a game in which a toy mouse could run down either 1 of 2 slides. Children found it difficult to mark physically both possible outcomes, compared to reporting a single hypothetical future event, “What if next time he goes the other way …” (Experiment 1: 3–4‐year‐olds and 4–5‐year‐olds), or a single counterfactual event, “What if he had gone the other way …?” (Experiment 2: 3–4‐year‐olds and 5–6‐year‐olds). An open counterfactual question, “Could he have gone anywhere else?,” which required thinking about the counterfactual as an alternative possibility, was also relatively difficult.