The Co-Construction of Counterfactual Worlds in Parent-Child Reminiscing

Counterfactual thinking plays a central role in human judgment and decision-making. Most of what we know about its development comes from studies where children are prompted to reason counterfactually. In which everyday contexts do children first hear and produce counterfactuals? In this study, we explored parent-child reminiscing as a promising context. We propose that children’s early counterfactual thinking might be scaffolded by caregivers via a co-construction process, whereby one dyad member offers an antecedent (e.g., “If we’d remembered an umbrella…”) and the other offers a consequent (e.g., “…we wouldn’t be wet.”). Sixty-two parent-child dyads (children aged 3 to 6 years) discussed positive and negative shared past events and were later prompted to discuss “what could have happened differently”. We analyzed conversations for the dynamics of co-constructed counterfactuals and the forms any counterfactuals took, including their structure (additive or subtractive), direction (upward or downward), and controllability (controllable or uncontrollable). While spontaneous counterfactuals arose infrequently, all dyads produced counterfactuals when prompted. Parents frequently introduced counterfactual frames that children could build on, leading to co-construction. Counterfactuals were slightly more common following negative or unexpected events compared to positive and routine ones. Both parents and children predominantly focused on controllable aspects of events, suggesting a shared recognition of which counterfactuals are most useful for behavior change. Our results highlight the role of parent-child conversations in supporting the development of counterfactual reasoning and suggest potential pathways for fostering this skill in early childhood.