Poster #44 - Young children's counterfactual thinking encouraged by the negative emotions of others

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

Counterfactual thinking is the ability to consider alternatives to what we know has happened. Rafetseder et al. (2013) have argued that 5- to 6-year-olds have difficulty to think counterfactually. However, the counterfactual tasks developed by Rafetseder et al. involved physical events with a relatively ambivalent outcome valence. Counterfactual thinking is activated by the event’s negative outcome valence (Byrne, 2016). In particular, human’s negative emotion explicitly signals negative outcome valence (Epstude & Roese, 2008). Thus, there is the possibility that the component of human negative emotion in an event can clarify the event outcome valence and trigger the ability of counterfactual thinking in early childhood. Therefore, this study compared the young children’s task performances in control condition with that in emotional condition designed to add negative emotional components.

Methods. A total of ninety-seven 4- to 6-year-olds (female = 51) participated. The overall sample was divided into two age groups: a younger group with 47 children (M = 58.47 months), and an older group with 50 children (M = 69.86 months). Participants were assigned to either the control condition (n = 49) or the emotional condition (n = 48). In the control condition, each participant was tested using three physical scenarios. Scenarios were described with pictures (Figure 1, upper pictures), and then participants were asked two control questions and counterfactual question. In the emotional condition, two sense referring to the emotional state of the protagonist were added to the each scenario in the control condition (Figure 1, lower pictures). Apart from these points, the storyline and task procedures were the same as in the control condition. Participants scored 1 point if they answered all three questions correctly in each scenarios, and those scores were summed to calculate the counterfactual score (Max = 3).

Results. An Age × Condition ANOVA was performed (Table 1). The main effects of age, F (1, 93) = 11.45, p = .001, and condition, F (1, 93) = 4.56, p = .03, were significant. Post-hoc analyses showed that the older group performed better than the younger group, and that counterfactual score in the emotional condition was higher than in the control condition (ps < .05). The age × condition interaction was not significant. Next, one-sample t-test was performed by age and condition. In the control condition, the scores of both the younger and older group were no different from chance. In the emotional condition, the score of the young group was no different from chance, but the score of the older group was higher than chance (t (24) = 4.18, p < .001).

Discussion. This study shows that presenting with the protagonist’s negative feelings about an event outcome, enables 5- to 6-year-olds to think counterfactuals about physical events. In other words, these results demonstrate that children aged 5-6 years are capable of counterfactual thinking in the specific situation such as presenting the other’s emotion. These findings suggest the need to investigate the influence of the emotional components on the counterfactual thinking in early childhood.

Author

• Keito Nakamichi, Chiba University
  Presenting Author