Poster #33 - Perceptions of Randomness Predict Children's Use of Supernatural Explanations

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Cognitive Processes

Integrative Statement

It is uncomfortable to think that forces out of one’s control can determine important events, but a certain degree of randomness is inevitable in the world. Confronting this reality elicits anxiety in adults, who then turn to a variety of beliefs—including superstition and religion—in order to regain a sense of order and nonrandomness (Kay, Whitson, Gaucher, & Galinsky, 2009). However, little work has explored how children react to feelings of randomness and the associated lack of personal control, even through children tend to have less control over their lives. Do children, like adults, respond to randomness with compensatory beliefs? Or does this develop with age, as children slowly gain more control over their lives and only then react to its absence? Answering these questions is important to understanding the nature of supernatural beliefs and exploring the bases of individual differences in children’s beliefs.
We assessed 7- and 10-year-old children’s perceptions of randomness by asking them to rate their agreement with two statements about how things in their lives happen. Children were then read eight vignettes describing events in the lives of different fictional children. Four vignettes described children who either perform or fail to perform a superstitious ritual and then experience a positive or negative outcome, respectively. Children rated the connection between each superstition and outcome on a five-point scale. Another four vignettes featured children who experience a negative situation that ends up resolving positively. For these items, children rated how much they felt God helped to bring about each outcome. Parents provided information on familial exposure to religion and superstition.
Analyses revealed both developmental and individual variation. Younger children endorsed both superstitious causes and acts of God more strongly than did older children (p < .001 and .01, respectively; see Figure 1). In addition, children who perceived more randomness and chance in the world endorsed both superstitious causes and acts of God more strongly than did children who perceived less randomness in the world (p = .01 and .03, respectively; see Figure 2). Religious exposure significantly predicted children’s endorsement of acts of God, but not superstitious causes. Conversely, parental superstition significantly predicted children’s endorsement of superstitious causes, but not acts of God.
These findings suggest that feelings of randomness could be an important source of individual variation in children’s belief and skepticism regarding a wide range of entities and forces. Additionally, these results raise the possibility that certain supernatural beliefs may provide a comforting sense of order and predictability for children who otherwise lack it. Follow-up work is underway to test the role that perceptions of randomness play in regard to other supernatural beliefs, to explore the causal nature of this relation, and to tease apart the potentially separable effects of perceptions of randomness and lack of personal control. In time, we hope that this line of research will help identify factors that we can harness to promote more scientific, reality-based causal stances among children.

Authors

• Kelsey A. Kelley, The University of Texas at Austin
  Presenting Author

• Jacqueline D. Woolley, The University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author