When the alternative would have been better: Counterfactual reasoning and the emergence of regret

Abstract

Counterfactual reasoning about how events could have turned out better is associated with the feeling of regret. However, developmental studies show a discrepancy between the onset of counterfactual reasoning (at 3 years) and the feeling of regret (at 6 years). In four experiments we explored possible reasons. Experiment 1 (3- to 6-year-old children) and Experiment 2 (adult control) show that even when regret is assessed more directly than in previous studies (e.g., Amsel & Smalley, 2000) only adults but not children regret their decision. Experiment 3 (3- to 14-year-old children) suggests that double-questioning—asking children how happy they are with what they got before and after they had seen what they could have got—creates false positive indications of regret in the youngest children and that—when controlling for false positives—regret is not evident before 9 years. However, children before this age make a difference between attractive (three candies) and less attractive (one candy) items (Experiment 4; 6- to 8-year-old children). Taken together, this suggests that before 9 years of age children base their judgements solely on what they got without taking into account what they could have got.

Keywords:

• Counterfactual reasoning
• Regret
• Children
• Adults

Acknowledgements

This research was financially supported by Austrian Science Fund project (I140–G15) “Counterfactual reasoning in children” as part of the ESF EUROCORES LogiCCC initiative and forms part of the doctoral dissertation of Eva Rafetseder in the Department of Psychology at the University of Salzburg.

We would like to express our appreciation to the adults as well as the heads and children of the following kindergartens, youth centres and schools for their cooperation and valuable time participating in this project: Alterserweiterte Kindergruppe “Villa Kunterbunt”, Betriebskindergarten St. Johanns–Spital, Grundschule an der Blumenauer Straße, Jugendzentrum IGLU, Kinderund Jugendzentrum Taxham, Pfadfinder Mülln. We would like to thank Louisa Hacking, Carina Mühlberger, and Magdalena Schroffenegger for help with collecting data.

Notes

¹We thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing this out to us.