Confidence in the existence of unobservable scientific and religious entities is transmitted via parent testimony

• In Event: The Power of Testimony and Culture in Children’s Developing Beliefs about the Invisible and Impossible

Abstract

According to the testimony hypothesis (Harris & Corriveau, 2014; Harris & Koenig, 2006), linguistic variation in discussions about phenomena that we are not able to experience or observe first-hand is likely to influence children’s conceptualization of these entities. Indeed, in most cultural contexts studied thus far, there tends to be a wider consensus about the existence of scientific unobservables, such as oxygen or bacteria, as compared to religious unobservables, such as angels or the soul (e.g., Davoodi et al., 2020). One possible explanation for this differential level of confidence is that there are important differences in the way in which adults communicate claims about each type of entity.

The present research adopts a cross-cultural perspective to address this research question. We recruited families with 4- to 7-year-olds from three cultures: the United States, a society that is characterized by a broad diversity of religious practices and beliefs (N = 27 families); Iran a culture that is characterized by uniform endorsement of the Muslim faith in both private and public forums (N = 31 families); from two distinct communities in mainland China, a predominantly secular society in which religious groups are a minority (N = 30 families in total). Parents were invited to engage in unmoderated conversations with their child about three religious (God, Heaven, Angels) and three scientific entities (Germs, Oxygen, Electricity). The testimony of parents was coded for a number of subtle linguistic cues to existence including their use of uncertainty terms (e.g., “to think”, “to believe”, maybe”, “might”, “possibly”) and explicit references to community belief variation (e.g., “Some people think that…”).

We conducted separate mixed-effects linear and logistic regression models to examine the effect of entity type (religious, scientific) and religious background, and their potential interaction, on the nature of parent testimony within each culture. The results revealed that parents in all three cultures expressed more doubt when discussing the religious as compared to the scientific entities (all p’s < .05; see Figure 1A). Nevertheless, the more religious parents produced fewer uncertainty cues than the less religious or secular parents– most likely reflecting their confidence that these religious entities exist (all p’s < .03; see Figure 1B). Parents did not discuss a lack of consensus in belief for the scientific entities. Discussion about community belief variation in the domain of religion was also quite rare in both Iran and China, whereas approximately half of the US families discussed variation in people’s beliefs about the religious entities (see Figure 2). However, the more religious US parents were less likely to acknowledge religious belief variation, = -1.36, SE = 0.49, z = -2.75, p =.006. Future planned analyses will explore the relation between these cues in parent testimony and children’s ontological judgments. The current findings inform theories on the cultural transmission of beliefs in unobservable agents and processes in early childhood.

Authors

• Niamh McLoughlin, University of Kent
  Presenting Author

• Yixin Kelly Cui, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Telli Davoodi, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

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

• Fanxiao Wani Qiu, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ayse Payir, Boston University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Paul Harris, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author

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