School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD 4072, Australia.
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02467, USA.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2022 Dec 19;377(1866):20210346. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2021.0346. Epub 2022 Oct 31.
Adults often reason about what might have happened had they chosen an alternative course of action in the past, which can elicit the counterfactual emotion of regret. It is unclear whether young children's emotions are similarly impacted by counterfactual thinking about past possibilities. In this study, 4- to 9-year-old children ( = 160) opened one of two boxes, which concealed small and large prizes, respectively. Some children had the means to open either box, whereas other children only had the means to open one box. After seeing that the prize they did not obtain was larger than the one they did obtain, children were significantly more likely to report a negative change in emotion when the non-obtained prize had been a straightforward counterfactual possibility than when it had not. This shows that even young children experience counterfactual emotions following choices, which may ultimately drive them to make better choices in the future. This article is part of the theme issue 'Thinking about possibilities: mechanisms, ontogeny, functions and phylogeny'.
成年人经常会思考过去如果选择了另一种行动方案会怎样，这会引发反事实的遗憾情绪。目前还不清楚儿童的情绪是否也会受到对过去可能性的反事实思维的类似影响。在这项研究中，4 至 9 岁的儿童（n=160）打开了两个盒子中的一个，这两个盒子分别藏有小礼物和大礼物。一些儿童有办法打开两个盒子中的任意一个，而其他儿童则只能打开一个盒子。当孩子们看到他们没有得到的奖品比他们得到的奖品大时，如果未得到的奖品是一个直接的反事实可能性，那么他们报告情绪发生负面变化的可能性明显更高。这表明，即使是年幼的孩子在做出选择后也会体验到反事实情绪，这可能最终促使他们在未来做出更好的选择。本文是“思考可能性：机制、个体发生、功能和系统发生”主题特刊的一部分。
