Research on social cognition has fruitfully applied computational modeling approaches to
explain how observers understand and reason about others' mental states. By contrast …

Abstract Thinking about what might have been—counterfactual thinking—is a common
feature of the mental landscape. Key questions about counterfactual thinking center on why …

Counterfactual reasoning (CFR)—mentally representing what the world would be like now if
things had been different in the past—is an important aspect of human cognition and the …

The objective of this study was to describe the developmental progression of counterfactual
reasoning from childhood to adulthood. In contrast to the traditional view, it was recently …

In two experiments, 4-to 9-year-olds played a game in which they selected one of two boxes
to win a prize. On regret trials the unchosen box contained a better prize than the prize …

In two experiments using a decision-making game, we investigated children's thinking about
regret and relief. In Experiment 1 (N= 43, 31 children [5years 4months to 8years 2months of …

Previous research found that children first experience regret at 5 years and relief at 7. In two
experiments, we explored three possibilities for this lag:(1) relief genuinely develops later …

People's emotional states are influenced not just by events occurring in the present but also
by how events have unfolded in the past and how they are likely to unfold in the future. To …

In two experiments, one hundred and sixty‐two 6‐to 8‐year‐olds were asked to reason
counterfactually about events with different causal structures. All events involved …

Saying something “almost happened” indicates that one is considering a close
counterfactual world. Previous evidence suggested that children start to consider these …