Wong Alyson, Cordes Sara, Harris Paul L, Chernyak Nadia
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA.
Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
Dev Sci. 2023 Nov;26(6):e13394. doi: 10.1111/desc.13394. Epub 2023 Apr 19.
The ability to engage in counterfactual thinking (reason about what else could have happened) is critical to learning, agency, and social evaluation. However, not much is known about how individual differences in counterfactual reasoning may play a role in children's social evaluations. In the current study, we investigate how prompting children to engage in counterfactual thinking about positive moral actions impacts children's social evaluations. Eighty-seven 4-8-year-olds were introduced to a character who engaged in a positive moral action (shared a sticker with a friend) and asked about what else the character could have done with the sticker (counterfactual simulation). Children were asked to generate either a high number of counterfactuals (five alternative actions) or a low number of counterfactuals (one alternative action). Children were then asked a series of social evaluation questions contrasting that character with one who did not have a choice and had no alternatives (was told to give away the sticker to his friend). Results show that children who generated selfish counterfactuals were more likely to positively evaluate the character with choice than children who did not generate selfish counterfactuals, suggesting that generating counterfactuals most distant from the chosen action (prosociality) leads children to view prosocial actions more positively. We also found age-related changes: as children got older, regardless of the type of counterfactuals generated, they were more likely to evaluate the character with choice more positively. These results highlight the importance of counterfactual reasoning in the development of moral evaluations. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Older children were more likely to endorse agents who choose to share over those who do not have a choice. Children who were prompted to generate more counterfactuals were more likely to allocate resources to characters with choice. Children who generated selfish counterfactuals more positively evaluated agents with choice. Comparable to theories suggesting children punish willful transgressors more than accidental transgressors, we propose children also consider free will when making positive moral evaluations.
进行反事实思维（思考其他可能发生的事情）的能力对于学习、能动性和社会评价至关重要。然而，关于反事实推理中的个体差异如何在儿童的社会评价中发挥作用，我们所知甚少。在当前的研究中，我们探究了促使儿童对积极的道德行为进行反事实思维如何影响儿童的社会评价。87名4至8岁的儿童被介绍给一个做出积极道德行为（与朋友分享贴纸）的角色，并被问及这个角色还可以用贴纸做什么（反事实模拟）。要求儿童生成大量的反事实（五个替代行为）或少量的反事实（一个替代行为）。然后，儿童被问到一系列社会评价问题，将那个角色与一个没有选择且没有替代方案（被告知把贴纸送给他的朋友）的角色进行对比。结果表明，生成自私反事实的儿童比没有生成自私反事实的儿童更有可能对有选择的角色给予积极评价，这表明生成与所选行为（亲社会行为）最不相关的反事实会使儿童更积极地看待亲社会行为。我们还发现了与年龄相关的变化：随着儿童年龄的增长，无论生成的反事实类型如何，他们都更有可能对有选择的角色给予更积极的评价。这些结果凸显了反事实推理在道德评价发展中的重要性。研究亮点：年龄较大的儿童更有可能认可选择分享的行为主体，而不是没有选择的行为主体。被促使生成更多反事实的儿童更有可能将资源分配给有选择的角色。生成自私反事实的儿童对有选择的行为主体评价更积极。与认为儿童对故意违规者的惩罚多于意外违规者的理论类似，我们提出儿童在进行积极的道德评价时也会考虑自由意志。
