Comparison helps children form broad explanations

Children gain insight from trying to explain events, in part because self-explaining leads children to focus on broad general patterns. This study examines how children come to discover these broad patterns. We propose that generating explanations invokes comparison, which reveals commonalities that feed into a broad explanation. In three experiments, 4- to 6-year-olds (N = 138; 61 girls; Mage = 5;30; predominantly White; data collected 2023-2024) explained a pattern of outcomes that could result either from a single broad cause or from several specific causes. Children were more likely to arrive at the broad explanation when comparison was available than when it was not (E1: d = 1.67; E2: d = 1.08). The degree of required comparison support lessoned with age. Comparison and self-explanation combined to generate satisfactory explanations (E3: d = -0.91).