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Children’s understanding of counterfactual and temporal relief in others
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Johnstone , M., McCormack, T., Graham, A. J., Lorimer, S., Beck, S. R., Hoerl, C. and Feeney, A. (2022) Children’s understanding of counterfactual and temporal relief in others. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 223 . 105491. doi:10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105491 ISSN 0022-0965.
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WRAP-children’s-understanding-counterfactual-temporal-relief-others-Hoerl-2022.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (1499Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105491
Abstract
Developmentalists have investigated relief as a counterfactually mediated emotion, but not relief experienced when negative events end—so-called temporal relief. This study represents the first body of work to investigate the development of children’s understanding of temporal relief and compare it with their understanding of counterfactual relief. Across four experiments (407 children aged 4–11 years and 60 adults; 52% female), we examined children’s ability to attribute counterfactual and temporal relief to others. In Experiment 1, 7- to 10-year-olds typically judged that two characters would feel equally happy despite avoiding or enduring an event that was unpleasant for one character. Using forced-choice procedures, Experiments 2 to 4 showed that a fledgling ability to attribute relief to others emerges at 5 to 6 years of age and that the tendency to make these attributions increases with age. The experiments in this study provide the first positive evidence in the literature as to when children can begin to attribute both counterfactual and temporal instances of relief to others. Overall, there was little evidence for separate developmental trajectories for understanding counterfactual and temporal relief, although in Experiment 4 there was an indication that, under scaffolded contexts, some children find it easier to attribute counterfactual relief rather than temporal relief to others.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Philosophy | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Child psychology , Relief (Psychology) , Emotions in children , Child development | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Experimental Child Psychology | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Elsevier | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0022-0965 | ||||||||
| Official Date: | November 2022 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 223 | ||||||||
| Article Number: | 105491 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105491 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 14 September 2022 | ||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 14 September 2022 | ||||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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