Abstract
Increasing evidence suggests that counterfactual reasoning is involved in false belief reasoning. Because existing work is correlational, we developed a manipulation that revealed a signature of counterfactual reasoning in participants’ answers to false belief questions. In two experiments, we tested 3- to 14-year-olds and found high positive correlations (r = .56 and r = .73) between counterfactual and false belief questions. Children were very likely to respond to both questions with the same answer, also committing the same type of error. We discuss different theories and their ability to account for each aspect of our findings and conclude that reasoning about others’ beliefs and actions requires similar cognitive processes as using counterfactual suppositions. Our findings question the explanatory power of the traditional frameworks, theory theory and simulation theory, in favor of views that explicitly provide for a relationship between false belief reasoning and counterfactual reasoning.
Highlights
Counterfactual situations reflect the world as it would be had things been different
Children were asked the following questions: (11) Who does mum think has been in the kitchen searching for sweets? This was intended as a standard false belief question. ‘‘The girl” was the expected answer
As predicted, (1) basic reasoning with counterfactuals (BRC) errors predominated on both false belief questions and counterfactual questions and appeared at similar rates on both, (2) the answers children gave to the two questions correlated substantially, and (3) for both kinds of question, correct answers were more common in nondiscriminating conditions than in discriminating conditions
Summary
Counterfactual situations reflect the world as it would be had things been different. False beliefs are counterfactual insofar as they represent the world as it is not. Suppose that ‘‘Max” puts his chocolate into the drawer. Later, in his absence, his mum (mother) bakes a cake, uses some of the chocolate, and puts it in the cupboard. In his absence, his mum (mother) bakes a cake, uses some of the chocolate, and puts it in the cupboard At this point, Max falsely believes that his chocolate is still in the drawer. Children older than 4 years typically predict that Max will search for his chocolate in the drawer even though it is no longer there. Until about 31⁄2 years, indicate the item’s true location (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001).
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