动机冲突下2～4岁幼儿反事实思维理解的发展

The Development of 2-to 4-year-old Children's Comprehensibility of Counterfactual Thinking under Motivational Conflict

考察在3种动机冲突下幼儿反事实思维理解的发展。结果表明:(1)2岁幼儿的加法、减法反事实思维得分显著高于替代反事实思维。(2)在加法反事实任务中,2岁幼儿显著低于4岁幼儿;在减法反事实任务中,2-4岁期间,反事实理解能力逐年提高。(3)在趋避冲突下,加法与减法反事实得分都显著高于替代反事实。(4)在结果反事实理解任务中,随年龄增长,幼儿结果反事实思维理解能力有显著提高。

Counterfactual thinking can be divided into additive,subtractive and substitutional counterfactuals according to the characteristics of the antecedent.It can also be divided into upwards and downwards counterfactuals according to the characteristics of the consequent. At present,there are no coincident conclusions about at what point children begin to create counterfactual thinking.Harris et al and Gergely et al found children could conduct counterfactual reasoning at 2-3.However,Riggs indicated that children could not conduct counterfactual thinking at 3,and they also had difficulty at 4 and 5 years of age.Counterfactual thinking includes two processes： comprehensibility and production,two abilities produced at different stages.ComprehensibiUty is the antecedent of production.Children can understand,but this doesn＇t mean that they can create spontaneously.The general discussion about ＂When children can possess the ability of counterfactual reasoning＂ could create different perspectives.Therefore,this study investigated the development of 2-to 4- year-old children＇s comprehensibility of counterfactual thinking under three kinds of motivational conflict the storytelling method adopted. The motivational conflict includes double-approach conflict,double-avoidance conflict and approach-avoidance conflict. Seventy-six 2- to -4 -year-old children were selected as participants.This study included three experiments and adopted self-made stories.The first experiment examined the comprehensibility of antecedent counterfactuals,while the second experiment examined their ability to comprehend different directions＇ consequent counterfactuals.The results indicated：（1） the scores of 2-year-old children＇s additive and subtractive counterfactuals were significandy higher than those of substitutional counterfactuals;（2） there were significant differences among three age groups in subtractive counterfactuals tasks;（3） under the approach-avoidance conflict condition,additive and subtractive counterfactuals were significantly higher than that of substitutional counterfactuals;（4） there was a significant age difference in young children＇s consequent counterfactual comprehension tasks.