Psychological Development and Education ›› 2009, Vol. 25 ›› Issue (4): 8-14,36.

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Development of Young Children’s Antecedent Counterfactual Reasoning and Its Influencing Factors

WANG Jing, XIAO Xing-rong, CHEN Ying-he   

  1. Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875
  • Online:2009-10-15 Published:2009-10-15

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Abstract: This study was conducted to explore the development of antecedent counterfactual reasoning of young children from 3 to 5 years of age and the influencing effect of outcome valence and domain knowledge.Verbal protocol and storytel ing were used to test 90 participants.The results showed as follows:(1)age had a significant effect on young children's antecedent counterfactual reasoning(2)young children generated more additive counterfactuals than subtractive counterfactuals,but no significant difference between upward and downward counterfactuals.(3)outcome valence had no direct effect but domain knowledge had a significant effect on young children.s antecedent counterfactual reasoning,and the interaction was also significant;however,the interaction disappeared when language was controlled.

Key words: antecedent counterfactual reasoning, domain knowledge, young children

CLC Number: 

  • B844.1
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