The Role of Temporal Distance in Young Children’s Future Event Representations and Reasoning

The current dissertation examines the effect of temporal distance on two aspects of children’s thinking: 1) future event representations (Study 1), and 2) reasoning (Study 2). Study 1 includes a series of three experiments that sought to determine the effects of temporal distance, age, and event frequency on children’s future event representations. Five- to 9-year-olds were asked to describe frequent (e.g., snack) and infrequent (e.g., party) events, with half of children imagining that these events would happen in the near future and the other half imagining that they would happen in the distant future. With several exceptions, effects of temporal distance were not detected, although event frequency (examined in Experiment 1) played an important role in children’s event representations. Results suggested that young children may begin perceiving differences in temporal distance, but that this does not translate to their event representations (e.g., clarity, use of personal pronouns) until later in development. Study 2 used a novel method to examine the impact of temporal distance on young children’s reasoning, while addressing important methodological limitations of Study 1 (i.e., reliance on verbal skills and self-projection). Three to 6-year-olds were asked to judge which of two characters felt more “happy”/“sad” right now: one engaging in a pleasant/unpleasant activity tomorrow or another engaging in this same activity when they are a year older. Starting at age 4, children correctly judged which child was more “happy”/“sad” right now. However, 4- to 6-year-olds tended not to explain their judgments by referring to temporal distance, per se. Similarly to Study 1, results suggest that children are sensitive to temporal distance early in development - perhaps earlier than previously thought - but do not yet verbally express this understanding. Taken together, this research contributes new insights to our understanding of the development of sensitivity to temporal distance in young children. Implications for theories about children’s future thinking and future areas of research are discussed.