“Because Plants Need Rain to Have Food on Them!”: Children’s Possibility Judgments use Causal Understanding

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Cognitive Processes

Abstract

From an early age, children are quite conservative in judging what can really happen (Harris & Corriveau, 2020). They reliably distinguish between fantasy and reality using their understanding of causal laws (Harris, 2013) and question the possibility of events that depart from everyday reality (Corriveau et al., 2009). However, as they get older, many children are introduced to religious narratives recounting events that defy causal regularities, such as water turning into wine (Harris & Koenig, 2006). Children increasingly judge narratives about religious miracles as real (Woolley & Cox, 2007), especially children with a religious background, who are exposed to such narratives on a regular basis (Corriveau et al., 2015). Does this deference imply a radical transformation in children’s causal analysis of what can and cannot happen or a more local shift? In two experiments, we examined these possibilities.
In the first experiment, we presented younger (5- to 7-years-old) and older (8- to 11-years-old) children from either a religious or secular background with 4 types of stories that varied in terms of their departure from everyday causality: magical stories violating causal regularities; religious stories violating causal regularities but via a Divine agent; unusual stories not violating causal regularities but with an improbable event; and realistic stories not violating causal regularities. Overall, children were less likely to judge religious and magical stories as ‘real’ compared to unusual and realistic stories, ps < .001. Nevertheless, religious children were more likely than secular children to judge religious stories as ‘real’, p < .01. Yet regardless of their religious status, children often invoked a causal regularity when justifying their conclusion that a story was ‘real’, and often pointed to the violation of a causal regularity when justifying their conclusion that a story was ‘pretend’ (Figure 1).
In the second experiment, children heard stories in which characters experienced negative outcomes. When asked how those outcomes could have been prevented, children spontaneously generated interventions consistent with causal laws (e.g., a farmer could have watered berries more to produce a larger crop) regardless of religious background. When asked about various counterfactual interventions that were either consistent or inconsistent with causal laws, children endorsed the intervention consistent with natural laws at high levels, irrespective of religious background, p > .05 (Figure 2). They also rejected mental (i.e., via wishing) and magical (i.e., via magical powers) interventions at similar rates, irrespective of religious background, ps ≤ .05. An effect of religious background was found only for divine interventions, p < .01; children receiving a religious (versus a secular) schooling were more likely to endorse them.
These findings demonstrate a measurable but nonetheless limited impact of religious exposure on children’s possibility judgments. Overall, children appraise the likelihood that story events can actually happen in light of their beliefs about everyday causal regularities and rarely appeal to supernatural forces to explain them. A religious education renders children more credulous towards divine intervention, but does not alter their fundamental disposition to invoke mundane causal regularities when thinking about what could happen.

Authors

• Ayse Payir, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Yixin Kelly Cui, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Telli Davoodi, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Niamh McLoughlin, University of Kent
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Marie Clegg, Texas State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul Harris, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathleen H. Corriveau, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author