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Children’s ideas about what can really happen: The impact of age and religious background

Payir, Ayse, McLoughlin, Niamh, Cui, Yixin Kelly, Davoodi, Telli, Clegg, Jennifer, Harris, Paul L., Corriveau, Kathleen H. (2021) Children’s ideas about what can really happen: The impact of age and religious background. Cognitive Science, 45 (10). Article Number e13054. ISSN 0364-0213. (doi:10.1111/cogs.13054) (KAR id:90262)

Abstract

Five to 11-year-old U.S. children, from either a religious or secular background, judged whether story events could really happen. There were four different types of stories: magical stories violating ordinary causal regularities; religious stories also violating ordinary causal regularities but via a Divine agent; unusual stories not violating ordinary causal regularities but with an improbable event; and realistic stories not violating ordinary causal regularities and with no improbable event. Overall, children were less likely to judge that religious and magical stories could really happen than unusual and realistic stories although religious children were more likely than secular children to judge that religious stories could really happen. Irrespective of background, children frequently invoked causal regularities in justifying their judgments. Thus, in justifying their conclusion that a story could really happen, children often invoked a causal regularity whereas in justifying their conclusion that a story could not really happen, they often pointed to the violation of a causal regularity. Overall, the findings show that children appraise the likelihood of story events actually happening in light of their beliefs about causal regularities. A religious upbringing does not impact the frequency with which children invoke causal regularities in judging what can happen, even if it does impact the type of causal factors that children endorse.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1111/cogs.13054
Uncontrolled keywords: Possibility judgments, testimony, religion, causal thinking
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
H Social Sciences
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Niamh MCLOUGHLIN
Date Deposited: 17 Sep 2021 09:41 UTC
Last Modified: 02 Dec 2021 09:53 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/90262 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

McLoughlin, Niamh.

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