Abstract: ：Counterfactual thinking could be divided into additive, subtractive and substitutional counterfactuals according to the characters of antecedent. It also could be divided into upwards and downwards counterfactuals according to the characters of consequent. At present there was no coincident conclusion about at what point the children began 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 couldn’t conduct the counterfactual thinking at 3, and it also had difficulty at 4 years-old and 5 years-old. Zhang Kun discovered children of 3-year-old made mistake easily, and children of 4-year-old almost could accomplish the counterfactual reasoning. Chen Y.H. et al found all the children could conduct counterfactual reasoning from 3-5. Counterfactual thinking included comprehensibility and production, the two abilities produce at different stages. Comprehensibility was the antecedent of production. Children could understand didn’t mean they could cerate spontaneously. The general discussion about “When children could 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 which adopted storytelling method. The motivational conflict included double-approach conflict, double-avoidance conflict and approach-avoidance conflict. 76 2-to-4 year-old children were selected as participants. This study included three experiments and it adopted self-made stories which were familiar with children. After children listened to the stories, they answered the questions “yes” or “no” to indicated whether the questions were true or false. The first experiment examined the comprehensibility of antecedent counterfactuals, while the second one looks at their ability to comprehend different directions’ consequent counterfactuals. The result indicated: (1)The scores of 2-year-old children’s additive and subtractive counterfactuals were significantly higher than that of substitutional counterfactuals.(2)There was significant difference among three age groups in subtractive counterfactuals tasks.(3)Under approach-avoidance conflict condition, additive and subtractive counterfactuals were significantly higher than that of substitutional counterfactuals. (4)There was significant age difference in young children’s consequent counterfactual comprehension tasks.

Key words: motivational conflict, antecedent counterfactuals, consequent counterfactuals

摘要： 采用故事法, 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, 3个年龄组得分有显著性差异。(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, 随着年龄增长, 幼儿结果反事实思维理解能力有显著提高。

关键词: 动机冲突, 前提反事实, 结果反事实