The majority of past research on future thinking has asked children to make choices for specific
future events. For example, Atance and O’Neill (2005b) asked 3-year-olds to select three objects to
take with them on a trip and then asked the children to explain why they chose each item. The
researchers found that children as young as 3 years were able to refer to the future in their explanations
and, furthermore, could account for uncertainties that were present when planning for the future
(e.g., bringing a bandage in case someone gets hurt). Because children were able to incorporate uncertainty
into their explanations (e.g., accounting for the possibility of getting hurt), these findings suggest
that 3-year-olds have the ability to think about and refer, linguistically, to the future in the
choices they make. Furthermore, children’s choices may have been based on semantic future thinking
processes In a similar
study, Atance and Meltzoff (2005) asked children to bring one of three items to a future location
(e.g., the mountains, the desert). The correct item in this study served a functional purpose (e.g., taking
sunglasses to the sunny desert). Unlike Atance and O’Neill (2005b), this study found that younger children
had difficulty in explaining their choices. The authors suggested that although younger children
may have language difficulties that impede their explanatory behavior, the larger issue is the tendency
to select objects based on associations. Therefore, in Atance and Meltzoff (2005) study, although
younger children were able to select the functional tool, they less often used causal language (e.g.,
‘‘I chose the sunglasses because the sunny desert will cause sun in my eyes’’). Instead, they tended
to use language that reflected associations (e.g., ‘‘I chose the sunglasses because they can be worn
in a sunny desert’’)