ABSTRACT
People’s readiness to construct imaginary worlds has been a topic of great interest to researchers in adult cognition and in children’s thinking. Research on adults has identified the circumstances which prompt people to think about what might have been, on the content of their imagined alternatives to reality, and on the cognitive mechanisms which underlie this activity (Byrne, 1997; Kahneman & Miller, 1986; Kahneman & Tversky, 1982; Roese, 1997; Roese & Olson, 1995). This research has highlighted just how central to human reasoning is the ability to consider what is actually the case in relation to how things could be or could have been. Adults do not only imagine alternative worlds, but also reflect on what actions could have produced them. Our causal reasoning seems to be integrally linked with our readiness to imagine alternative situations. Byrne (1997) suggests that without a capacity for such counterfactual thinking we may entertain little hope or ambition, have little sense of progress or perfectibility, and little sense of boredom or curiosity.
