What is it about?
Children have trouble answering the question "what would have happened?", particularly children under 6 years old. Is this because they simply can't engage in the process of counterfactual reasoning, or is it because they are engaging in counterfactual reasoning, but considering different possibilities that we would as adults? We show that 4-6-year-old children do engage in counterfactual reasoning, but consider systematically different possibilities than an adult would.
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Why is it important?
Counterfactual reasoning is critical to adult decision-making, so it's surprising that children struggle with it. This paper is the first one to examine not just whether children fail, but why. It's the first step in a line of work that can help us scaffold children's reasoning and better understand the development of this critical ability.
Perspectives
The question we started with was clear, can children engage in counterfactual reasoning, and if not, why not? This was one of the most challenging projects I've ever engaged in, in terms of trying to figure out what was going on and then testing it. It took five years from when I started this project to figure it out to, and the patience and persistence of my co-authors made it possible.
Jonathan Kominsky
Harvard University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: The trajectory of counterfactual simulation in development., Developmental Psychology, February 2021, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/dev0001140.
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