Counterfactual thinking and its relation to executive functions and emotional functions in early childhood

Counterfactual thinking, executive functions, theory of mind and emotion understanding are important cognitive and emotional skills that develop in early childhood. Examining the nature and relationship of these skills seems important to understand early childhood development and to create the necessary interventions. The sample of the study consisted of 82 children 3,4 and 5 aged who ongoing kindergarten. Participants were gathered information through the Syllogism Task, Location Change Task, Causal Chain Task, Hand Game, Day-Night Game, Unexpected Content Task and Emotion Comprehension Test. In addition, TEDIL (Turkish Early Language Development Test) was used in the measurement of language skills as a control variable. The hierarchical regression analyses showed that counterfactual thinking performance was significantly predicted by participants's executive functions performance. However, although the ability to understand emotions is related to the task of counterfactual thinking, it does not appear to be a significant predictor. The findings are discussed in the light of the literature.