Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The ability to imagine alternative possibilities plays a crucialrole in everyday cognitive functioning beginning in earlychildhood. Across two studies, we ask whether individualdifferences in young children’s (Mean Age = 5.01; SD = 0.78Range = 2) fluency in generating alternative possibilitiesrelates to a particular type of social-cognitive counterfactualjudgment, namely children’s belief in the possibility to “actotherwise” when actions go against stated strong desires (i.e.“free will”). We found that the fluency of generating ideaswas a consistent individual difference that held regardless ofdomain. We also found that individual children’s fluencypredicted judgments of free will for themselves (Study 2) butnot for others (Study 1). Our findings raise new questionsabout how counterfactual thinking enables children toovercome psychological barriers to self-control, and howstimulating the imagination facilitates developing cognitionsthat rely on it.