Multiple Developments in Counterfactual Thinking
Year: 2011
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: Mapping the development of children’s counterfactual thinking should allow insight in to this process in adults and its relation with causal understanding. We argue that there is not one critical development that should be thought of as marking children’s ability to engage in counterfactual thought. Rather there is a sequence of (at least) four developments that takes place from early to middle childhood. Three-year-olds can generate alternative future worlds, but it is not until children are around 4 that they can speculate about known to be false counterfactuals. Later developments involve representing these counterfactuals as possibilities that could have occurred and relating the counterfactual and real worlds. We consider whether domain general developments in executive function might underpin these developments.
Source: Oxford University Press eBooks
Authors: Sarah R. Beck, Kevin J. Riggs, Patrick Burns
Language: English
Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2506251294