Children’s beliefs about unobservable entities in three societies

• In Event: 3-073 - Community Effects on Children’s Interests, Behaviors, and Beliefs

Integrative Statement

Children learn a great deal from adults in their community. For example, children rely heavily on the testimony of adults in their community when learning about unobservable entities from the domain of science, such as germs and oxygen, or from the domain of religion, such as angels and God. However, we know little about how children form beliefs when the testimony provided by adults in their immediate community is likely to be different from that of the broader society in which that community is embedded. We assessed beliefs about the existence of three scientific (germs, oxygen, electricity) and three religious (God, angels, heaven), unobservable entities among younger and older children in three religious communities embedded in societies that differed with respect to the social value of religion and the diversity of religious belief.

We tested 201 children. 85 children (42 5-6-year-olds and 43 9-10-year-olds) were tested in Iran, a religious theocracy where all children are publicly exposed to uniform religious teachings, and society, at large, subscribes to uniform religious beliefs. 45 children (25 5-6-year-olds and 20 9-10-year-olds) were from religious families in China. China, in contrast to Iran, represents an atheist society where subscribing to religious beliefs is controversial and the larger society does not practice a religion. Finally, 71 children were from religious families in the U.S. (45 5-6-year-olds and 26 9-10-year-olds). The U.S. represent a diverse society with respect to religious beliefs and children are likely exposed to such diversity. Thus, our three samples differed with respect to beliefs about, as well as exposure to, religious practices at the societal level, although they were similar with respect to exposure to religious belief within the family and their immediate communities. We asked children in all three samples about how confident they were that religious and scientific entities exist.

The overwhelming majority of children from all three countries were very confident that both the religious and the scientific entities exist (Iran – Religion: 89%, Science: 94%; China – Religion: 90%, Science: 90%; U.S. – Religion: 88%, Science: 94%). A mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression model with Country (China as reference), Domain, and the Country X Domain interaction shows a marginally significant interaction effect between Country and Domain. Despite the negative stance of the broader society in China toward religion, children in the Chinese sample were equally confident about entities in the religious and scientific domains, whereas children in the U.S. and children in Iran, were slightly more confident that the scientific, as compared to the religious, entities exist. (China-U.S x Domain.: B = -1.29, SE = 0.65, p = 0.05; China-Iran x Domain: B = -1.15, SE = 0.64, p = 0.07) (see Figure 1).

These findings highlight the role of community values on children’s ontological beliefs. When the religious practices in children’s immediate community are not consistent with broader societal values, the immediate community rather than the broader society has a greater influence on children’s beliefs.

Authors

• Telli Davoodi, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer M. Clegg, Texas State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Yixin Kelly Cui, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul Harris, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathleen Helen Corriveau, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author