School of Psychology, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
J Exp Child Psychol. 2012 Mar;111(3):501-15. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2011.10.003. Epub 2011 Nov 23.
The experience of regret rests on a counterfactual analysis of events. Previous research indicates that regret emerges at around 6 years of age, marginally later than the age at which children begin to answer counterfactual questions correctly. We hypothesized that the late emergence of regret relative to early counterfactual thinking is a result of the executive demands of simultaneously holding in mind and comparing dual representations of reality (counterfactual and actual). To test this hypothesis, we administered two regret tasks along with four tests of executive function (two working memory tasks, a switch task, and an inhibition task) to a sample of 104 4- to 7-year-olds. Results indicated that switching, but not working memory or inhibition, was a significant predictor of whether or not children experienced regret. This finding corroborates and extends previous research showing that the development of counterfactual thinking in children is related to their developing executive competence.
后悔的体验是基于对事件的反事实分析。先前的研究表明，儿童大约在 6 岁时开始出现后悔情绪，略晚于他们能够正确回答反事实问题的年龄。我们假设，与早期的反事实思维相比，后悔的出现较晚，是因为同时记住和比较现实的两种表现形式（反事实和实际）需要执行能力。为了验证这一假设，我们对 104 名 4 至 7 岁的儿童进行了两项后悔任务和四项执行功能测试（两项工作记忆任务、一项转换任务和一项抑制任务）。结果表明，转换能力，而不是工作记忆或抑制能力，是儿童是否经历后悔的重要预测因素。这一发现证实并扩展了先前的研究，表明儿童反事实思维的发展与他们不断发展的执行能力有关。
