2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report
Development of counterfactual thinking: Approaching from the domain of event and the causal chain
| Project/Area Number |
24730550
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
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| Allocation Type | Multi-year Fund |
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| Research Field |
Educational psychology
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| Research Institution | Shizuoka University |
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Principal Investigator |
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| Project Period (FY) |
2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
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| Keywords | 幼児 / 発達 / 反事実的思考 / 反実推論 / 因果推論 / 領域特殊 / 認知発達 |
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Counterfactual thinking is “the ability to consider alternatives to what we know has happened.” Four studies examined the development of counterfactual thinking.
Study 1 showed that young children’s counterfactual thinking is positively related to the ability of pretense. Study 2 and 3 examined the influence of the task structure (causal chain) on young children’s counterfactual thinking. The results showed that (regardless of the task structures) younger than 5-years-olds could think about counterfactual in psychological domain, but even 5-years-olds had the difficulty with counterfactual thinking in physical domain. Study 4 showed the possibility that this difficulty was caused by the variability of physical events.
These results suggested the development of young children’s counterfactual thinking differently depending on the domain of events.
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| Free Research Field |
発達心理学（認知発達）
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