Counterfactual thinking elicits emotional change in young children

Adults often reason about what might have happened had they chosen an alternative course of action in the past, which can elicit the counterfactual emotion of regret. It is unclear whether young children's emotions are similarly impacted by counterfactual thinking about past possibilities. In this study, 4- to 9-year-old children ( N = 160) opened one of two boxes, which concealed small and large prizes, respectively. Some children had the means to open either box, whereas other children only had the means to open one box. After seeing that the prize they did not obtain was larger than the one they did obtain, children were significantly more likely to report a negative change in emotion when the non-obtained prize had been a straightforward counterfactual possibility than when it had not. This shows that even young children experience counterfactual emotions following choices, which may ultimately drive them to make better choices in the future. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Thinking about possibilities: mechanisms, ontogeny, functions and phylogeny’.