The Development of the Counterfactual Imagination

Abstract When reasoning counterfactually, we think of alternative possibilities to what we know to be true about the world by imagining what would have happened had a situation been different. Research has yielded mixed findings and substantial debate over when this ability develops, how it is best conceptualized, and what functions it serves. In this article, we propose a framework of counterfactual reasoning in development. We argue that counterfactual reasoning is best understood by looking both at the representations of reality children manipulate counterfactually, and the cognitive processes that make up and contribute to counterfactual reasoning. In so doing, we highlight the fact that many of the component skills are present in early childhood. This framework yields testable predictions about children’s counterfactual reasoning across a range of situations. We also discuss recent work that examines the contribution of counterfactual reasoning to learning in childhood.