Developing Appreciation for Ambivalence: The Understanding of Concurrent Conflicting Desires in 4-to 7-Year-Old Children

The current experiment examined the development of children's ability to comprehend concurrent conflicting desires (i. e., both wanting and not wanting something at the same time). Participants were 4to 7-year-old children and a group of undergraduate students (N = 20 in each age group). Results showed that the 6-and 7-year-old children understood concurrent conflicting desires at levels that were well above chance. There was evidence that even some of the 5-year-olds exhibited an emerging comprehension of conflicting desires. However, the 4-year-old children showed little ability to appreciate conflicting desire states. As such, children showed appreciation for conflicting desires at younger ages than suggested by previous research. In addition, significant relationships were observed between children's concurrent conflicting desire understanding and their theory of mind (ToM) and executive functioning (EF) skills, even after controlling for chronological and verbal age.