Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 11, 2026

The Adventures of Fundi Intervention Based on the Cognitive and Emotional Processing in Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder Patients
Published on: June 12, 2020
Thinking about the future because of the past: young children's knowledge about the causes of worry and preventative
1Department of Psychology, Center for Mind and Brain, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. khlaga@ucdavis.edu
Abstract:
Two studies investigated 3- to 6-year-olds' and adults' (N= 128) knowledge about emotions and behaviors caused by thinking about the future because of the past. Participants listened to stories featuring characters that experienced negative events, and then, many days later, felt worried or changed their behaviors upon seeing an entity associated with the prior harm. Results revealed a significant increase between 3 and 5 years in the frequency that participants explained characters' reactions as caused by anticipating the reoccurrence of a negative past event. Across age, females more often marked future events as uncertain, as well as predicted that people in ambiguous risk situations would feel worried due to past-to-future connections.
Related Concept Videos
Counterfactual Thinking
Hindsight Biases
Revisionist Views of Adolescent and Adult Cognition
Information Processing Approach
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development from Childhood into Adulthood
Schemata: Building Blocks of Knowledge
Schemata...
Piaget's Stage 2 of Cognitive Development

