The role of testimony in the conceptualization of invisible phenomena: Findings from Turkey

• In Event: Scientific Folk Theories

Abstract

Children believe in the existence of various invisible phenomena, despite having limited or no first-hand experience with these phenomena (Harris, 2012). If children rely on others’ testimony when making such ontological judgments (Harris et al., 2006), then the level of confidence of these judgments is likely to vary based on the community testimony surrounding one type of phenomenon as compared to the other. Indeed, recent findings indicate that children and adults from Iran—a highly religious, Muslim-majority country governed by an Islamic theocracy—are almost as confident about the existence of various religious entities as they are about invisible scientific entities (Davoodi et al., 2019). To further examine the role of testimony as a mechanism in the conceptualization of invisible phenomena, we examined the level of confidence in the existence of scientific and religious entities among children and adults from Turkey, a constitutionally secular, Muslim-majority country with an “unsettled relationship between secularism and religion” (Keyman, 2007).
A total of forty-six 5- to 6- (M = 5.50, SD = 0.51) and forty-four 10- to 11-year-old (M = 10.41, SD = 0.50) children and 84 parents (M = 38.37, SD = 4.26) from Turkey reported their level of confidence in the existence of three religious (i.e., God, heaven, angels) and three scientific (i.e., germs, oxygen, electricity) entities.
As seen in Figure 1, almost all children were very confident about the existence of scientific entities but fewer were confident about the existence of religious entities, β = 3.79, SE = 0.50, p ≤ 0.001, especially among younger children, β = 1.10, SE = 0.47, p = 0.02. A similar pattern was observed for the parents, β = 1.48, SE = 0.11, p ≤ 0.001. As seen in Figure 2, children’s justifications for their existence judgments varied by the domain of entity as well, β = 1.26, SE = 0.29, p ≤ .001. For scientific entities, children justified their judgment primarily by elaborating on the causal or other properties of the entity, rather than by referring to the source of their information about it, β = -0.97, SE = 0.26, p = .0003, especially the older children, β = 0.96, SE = 0.26, p = .0002. For religious entities, however, children primarily referred to the source of their judgment, rather than offering elaborations about the entity, β = 0.80, SE = 0.31, p = .008. Older children were even more likely than younger children to refer to a source when justifying their judgment, β = 0.85, SE = 0.26, p = .0011.
These findings further support the role of community testimony as a key mechanism in the formation of beliefs regarding invisible phenomena. Like the participants from Iran, Turkish children and adults were very confident about the existence of scientific entities, reflecting the widespread consensus in the community surrounding these entities. In comparison to Iranian participants, however, Turkish children and adults were less confident about the existence religious entities, for which the consensus is less widespread in Turkey as compared to Iran.

Authors

• Ayse Payir, Boston University
  Presenting Author

• Gaye Soley, Boğaziçi Üniversitesi (BOUN)

• Oya Serbest, University of California - Santa Barbara

• Paul Harris, Harvard University

• Kathleen H. Corriveau, Boston University