Developmental Changes in Reasoning about Religious Norms: Insights from Hindu and Muslim Children in India

• In Event: The Multifaceted Nature of Religious Belief, Practice, and Identity across Development and Culture

Abstract

A central part of being religious is to adhere to religious practices, including manners of praying, dressing, and eating. Indeed, for some religious communities, observing religious practices may be even more important than holding religious beliefs. Thus, a key aspect of religious development concerns how children learn and understand the norms that regulate religious practices. Whether or not a Hindu decides to eat beef, or a Muslim decides to eat during the daytime in Ramadan, will depend on whether they think it is wrong to violate those norms, and why.

This talk will present work on developmental changes in how Hindu and Muslim children in India reason about religious norms. Within pluralistic societies like India, children witness violations of their religious norms by neighbors who do not follow their religion, prompting challenging questions including: Is it okay for my religious norms to be violated by others? And why should I follow my norms when others do not? 63 9- to 15-year-olds (Study 1) and 80 6- to 9-year-olds (Study 2) were presented with hypothetical scenarios in which Hindu, Muslim, and moral norms were violated by Hindu and Muslim protagonists; participants judged whether each action was okay and whether it would be acceptable if authority figures like god(s) had given permission.

Children typically judged that moral violations (e.g., harming others) were wrong for protagonists of both religious groups, but applied religious norms only to followers of those groups (e.g., judging it wrong for a Hindu but not a Muslim to eat beef; Table 1). Yet we also observed marked age differences: 6- to 7-year-olds said it was wrong for a protagonist from one religion to violate the norms of another religion in 43% of cases, a figure that dropped to ~15% in 8- to 9-year-olds, and even lower among older children. Interestingly, while older Hindu children became more lenient about violations of Hindu norms by Hindu protagonists (e.g., only 41% of 12- to 15-year-olds judged them wrong), Muslim children remained strict about Muslim violations of Muslim norms (91% of 12- to 15-year-olds judged them wrong). Finally, while permission from god(s) was sufficient to make religious norm violations—but not moral violations—okay for nearly all older children, many younger children still judged these violations as being wrong (59% among 6- to 7-year-olds).

Together, these findings suggest significant developmental changes in children’s understanding of religious norms. With age—and experience with other religions—children may become more likely to restrict the norms of a religion to members of that religion. Experiences with contrasting norms, including moral norms and secular conventions, may also lead children to view religious norms—more than other norms—as rooted in divine authorities. Yet there are also differences in how children of different religions understand their group’s norms. Muslim children—in contrast to Hindu children—may remain strict about violations of their norms due to the need to preserve their identity within a majority-Hindu society, or because they perceive these norms as obligatory and reflective of Allah’s word.

Authors

• Mahesh Srinivasan, University of California - Berkeley
  Presenting Author

• Audun Dahl, University of California - Santa Cruz