Children's thinking about counterfactuals and future hypotheticals as possibilities.
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.
Beck
Sarah R
SR
School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. s.r.beck@bham.ac.uk
Robinson
Elizabeth J
EJ
Carroll
Daniel J
DJ
Apperly
Ian A
IA
D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D013850:Thinking