Poster #15 - Who Feels Happier Right Now?: The Impact of Temporal Distance on Children’s Judgements of Emotional Intensity

• In Event: Poster Session 07

Abstract

Although future thinking develops between ages 3 and 5, we know little about how it is shaped by temporal distance. Around age 7, children think about the near future (e.g., tomorrow) with more episodic detail (Wang et al., 2014) and clarity (Coughlin et al., 2014) than the distant future (e.g., next year). However, previous research has only examined the impact of temporal distance on future thinking in older children, using methods that rely heavily on expressive language. Accordingly, our understanding of whether and how temporal distance may begin to impact even younger children’s future thinking is limited. We address this issue in the current study by using a method that relies minimally on verbal skills and instead focuses on children’s judgments (and explanations) about the impact of temporal distance on current emotions. More specifically, we ask whether children understand, for example, that a person is likely more excited right now for a birthday party that is happening tomorrow vs a birthday party that is happening a year from now. Using a within-subjects design, 39 (projected N=75) 3- to 5-year-olds (younger group n=18) and 7- to 9-year-olds (older group n=21) were presented with four trials in which one character was described as engaging in an activity (e.g., getting an ice cream) tomorrow and the other character was described as engaging in the same activity a year from now. At test, children indicated which of the two characters was “more happy right now” and explained their rationale. If children’s future thinking is impacted by temporal distance, we expected them to indicate that the character engaging in the activity tomorrow would feel more happy right now than the character engaging in the activity a year from now. Correct responses were given a score of one and incorrect responses a score of zero. Total scores from 0 to 4 were calculated for the 1) test question and 2) explanation question (e.g., demonstrating an understanding that the chosen character is happier because they are doing the activity sooner). We hypothesized that the older group would perform significantly above chance for the test and explanation questions, while the younger group would not. An independent samples t-test showed that the older group gave correct answers on significantly more test trials (M=3.90 SD=.30) than the younger group (M=3.11, SD=1.18), t(18.89)=-2.77, p=.01. Both groups were significantly above chance (ps<.001; Figure 1). Similarly, another independent samples t-test revealed that the older group’s explanations were correct significantly more often (M=3.52, SD=.81) than those of the younger group (M=2.67, SD=1.49), t(25.34)=-2.17, p=.04. Moreover, the older group’s mean explanation score was significantly above chance, t(20)=8.58, p<.001, whereas the younger group’s was not, t(17)=1.89, p=.08 (Figure 1). Our findings suggest that children’s future thinking may be influenced by temporal distance at a relatively young age, but that children might not be able to verbally express this understanding until later in development. Implications for our understanding of the developmental trajectory of future thinking and the role of temporal distance are discussed.

Authors

• Bronwyn Michelle O'Brien, University of Ottawa
  Presenting Author

• Mohamed Ebeid

• Cristina Atance, University of Ottawa