Poster #31 - Positive & negative emotional responses to God by age, gender, and religious affiliation

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Cognitive Process

Integrative Statement

Existing research in the field of religion and cognition provides evidence that age, specifically the ages associated with the development of symbolic and mentalizing capacities, plays a large factor in children’s ability to conceptualize religious and spiritual beliefs (Richert & Granqvist, 2013). Furthermore, it has been found that children around 4-years-old are somewhat more likely to say that God is like their parents, suggesting that the positive and negative emotional responses that God provides them may correlate to that of a parental figure (DeRoos, Iedema, &Miedema, 2003). The current study examined whether children’s positive and negative emotional responses to God are related to gender, age, and religious background.

Participants were 251 children between the ages of 3.25 and 6.92 (M = 4.657, SD = .817; 57% female), and were recruited from 4 religious backgrounds: Protestant (n = 75), Catholic (n = 52), Muslim (n = 73), and Non-Affiliated (n = 51). Participants indicated if God provides them with 3 positive (comfort, help, love) and 3 negative (punish, angry, scare) emotional responses. Associating positive emotional attributes with God increased with age, r = .209, p = .001; and associating negative emotional attributes with God decreased with age, r = -.127, p = .049. In addition, there were no gender differences in associating positive attributes to God; but girls (M = -.324, SD = 1.205) were more likely than boys (M = -.615; SD = .969) to associate negative emotions with God, t(241) = 2.018, p = .045.

A Univariate ANOVCA, with gender and religious affiliation as the between-subjects variables and age as the covariate, indicated a positive and significant relation between age and positive attributes of God, F(1,229) = 6.720, p = .010, partial eta squared = .029 (see Figure 1). As the correlational analyses indicated, positive attributes to God increased with age. Gender and religious affiliation were not related to positive associations with God. In contrast, associating negative attributes to God was significantly related to religious affiliation, F(3,229) = 3.624, p = .014, partial eta squared = .045, and age, F(1,229) = 5.366, p = .021, partial eta squared = .023; and there was a significant interaction between age and religious affiliation in associating negative attributes to God, F(1,229) = 3.891, p = .010, partial eta squared = .048. As Figure 2 depicts, negative attributions to God are unrelated to age for Catholic and Muslim children and are negatively correlated with age for Protestant children, r = -.373, p = .001, and Non-Affiliated children, r = -.334, p = .020. In particular, Muslim and Catholic children remain ‘somewhat sure’ that God does not have negative properties; in contrast, younger Protestant and Non-Affiliated children are ‘somewhat sure’ that God might have negative properties, but older Protestant and Non-Affiliated children are ‘very sure’ that God does not have negative properties.

In summary, girls had somewhat more negative views of God than boys. In addition, religious affiliation moderated the relation between age and negative views of God.

Authors

• Alisha Conover, Graduate Student at University of California, Riverside
  Presenting Author

• Rebekah Ann Richert, University of California, Riverside
  Non-Presenting Author