Pretence & Counterfactual Reasoning: What is the nature of the association?

This research fellowship is poised to have a significant impact on the study of pretend play and cognitive and developmental psychology research as it builds on my PhD project which responded to a direct request for more robust theories and high-quality research addressing the role of pretend-play in development, including those using "modern statistical techniques [that] allow causal inferences from correlational designs with sufficiently large samples and numerous measures" (Lillard, Lerner, Hopkins, Dore, Smith & Palmquist, 2013, p.27). My PhD was successful in using a basic research design to detangle a novel theoretical idea - 'A Theory of Unified Imaginative Processes' - proposed by Weisberg & Gopnik (2013) to explain how the cognitive mechanisms activated during pretend play and counterfactual reasoning bear striking similarities although both are distinct thinking skills researched in separate fields of study for over a decade. The findings might potentially shed light on predictions that early years pretence serves the important function of preparing children to engage in similar non-literal thinking skills as they get older but at the level of higher-order reasoning, specifically, causal counterfactual reasoning in the context of this research. Furthermore, it contributes to the long-standing important question of why children spend so much of their formative years playing pretend. The findings supported the assumption that pretend-play and counterfactual reasoning are two cognitive skills that are significantly associated and make a meaningful contribution to how the constructs of pretence and counterfactual reasoning are measured in developmental research which will impact the design of further research in the field. This Fellowship is positioned to make a meaningful contribution to academic scholarship and impact practice and policy in non-academic contexts. The Fellowship will use data from my PhD and another epidemiological dataset to make new and meaningful contributions to our understanding of the relationship between play and cognitive development. Foremost, is the impact through academic publications through publishing an empirical, theoretical, and methodological paper in high impact journals. It is expected that academic scholars interested in child development will engage with these publications. The second aim is to learn new advanced quantitative methods like longitudinal modelling and behavioural genetics analysis which will be applied to undertaking new research using the Twins Early Development Study dataset through a collaboration with my mentor who has extensive experience doing research with secondary datasets. This addresses the third goal which is to test causal pathways that could indicate the effect of pretend play on cognitive outcomes, and to investigate environmental and genetic factors that are common to both pretence and cognitive outcomes. The fourth aim is to visit two renowned researchers, Professor Alison Gopnik, one of the authors who outlined the theory of unified imaginative processes which was tested in my PhD research and Dr Sara Beck the only researcher who has written a commentary in response to the proposed theory as well as being an expert in developmental counterfactual reasoning research. This will be a unique opportunity to enrich my research network by engaging the foremost thinkers conducting research in this field. The fifth aim is to disseminate the findings of my research and publications at academic conferences and seminars as well as to host a workshop with a sample of teacher practitioners (early years and primary school teachers) to discuss the practical implications of the theory to teaching and learning. The final aim is to write a grant funding application targeting the ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative Grant to receive funding to explore the option of replicating the findings from the further research initiative in another longitudinal dataset.