Children's understanding of counterfactual emotions: Age differences, individual differences, and the effects of counterfactual-information salience

in press, British Journal of Developmental Psychology, co-authored with Robert Guttentag and Jeff Gredlein

Children's understanding of anticipatory regret and disappointment

2008, Cognition and Emotion, 22, 815-832, co-authored with Robert Guttentag

The anticipation of regret and disappointment plays an important role in decision making by adults. The anticipation of regret may also lead to a desire to avoid feedback about likely outcomes of non-chosen courses of action, while the anticipation of disappointment is associated with avoidance of risk-taking and the deliberate dampening of expectations. The present study used the context of a simple game to examine children's understanding of these anticipatory regret and disappointment emotion-regulation strategies. It was found that even though children 7/8 years of age were able to understand the situational factors that produce disappointment and regret, it was not until 9/10 years of age that children exhibited an understanding of anticipatory regret emotion-regulation strategies, and even at this age children did not exhibit an understanding of the use of dampening of expectations as a strategy for coping with the anticipation of disappointment.

Reality compared with its alternatives: Age differences in judgments of regret and relief

2004, Developmental Psychology, 40, 764-775, co-authored with Robert Guttentag

Three experiments examined developmental change in children's understanding of regret and relief, two second-order emotions whose quality depends on a comparison between reality and "what might have been." In Experiment 1, participants 7 years of age and older, but not 5-year-olds, made regret-related emotion-response judgments that took into account a comparison of reality with its alternatives. In Experiment 2, 5-year-olds judged that an individual would feel better, rather than worse, when a counterfactual outcome was better than what actually occurred (the opposite of the pattern found with older children and adults). Experiment 3 focused on the understanding of relief. In contrast to the findings from Experiment I, the 7-year-olds in Experiment 3 made their judgments solely on the basis of what actually occurred.

What very small numbers mean

2002, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 131, 424-442, co-authored with Dale Cohen and Nathan Johnson

This article presents a theoretical and experimental framework for assessing the biases associated with the interpretation of numbers. This framework consists of having participants convert between different representations of quantities. These representations should include both variations in numerical labels that symbolize quantities and variations in displays in which quantity is inherent. Five experiments assessed how people convert between relative frequencies, decimals, and displays of dots that denote very low proportions (i.e., proportions below 1%). The participants demonstrated perceptual, response, and numerical transformation biases. Furthermore, the data suggest that relative frequencies and decimals are associated with different abstract representations of amount.

Children's judgments of disloyal and immoral peer behaviour: Subjective group dynamics in minimal intergroup contexts

2008, Child Development, 79, 444-461, co-authored with Dominic Abrams, Adam Rutland, & Joseph Pelletier

Older but wilier: Subjective group dynamics and children's response to ingroup accountability

2007, Developmental Psychology, 43, 134-148, co-authored with Dominic Abrams, Adam Rutland & Lindsey Cameron

Interracial contact and racial constancy: A multi-site study of racial intergroup bias in 3-5 year old Anglo-British children

2005, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 26, 699-713, co-authored with Adam Rutland, Lindsey Cameron & Laura Bennett