Journal ArticleDOI
Religious testimony in a secular society: Belief in unobservable entities among Chinese parents and their children.
Yixin Kelly Cui,Jennifer M. Clegg,Eleanor Fang Yan,Telli Davoodi,Paul L. Harris,Kathleen H. Corriveau +5 more
TLDR
The results indicate that children's religious beliefs are related to the beliefs of their parents, even when those beliefs go against the majority view.Abstract:
When learning about the existence of unobservable scientific phenomena such as germs or religious phenomena such as God, children are receptive to the testimony of other people. Research in Western cultures has shown that by 5 to 6 years of age, children-like adults-are confident about the existence of both scientific and religious phenomena. We examined the beliefs of secular and Christian children growing up in China as well as the beliefs of their parents. All participants-secular and Christian children, as well as their parents-were confident about the existence of the scientific phenomena. No such consensus emerged for religious phenomena. Whereas secular children and their parents were skeptical, Christian children and their parents were confident about the existence of the religious phenomena. Moreover, a similar pattern was found for Christian children in preschools and for Christian children with more extensive exposure to the secular state curriculum. Indeed, for religious phenomena, a positive association was found between the beliefs of Christian children and their parents, highlighting the potential influence of parental input in a predominantly secular society. Overall, the results indicate that children's religious beliefs are related to the beliefs of their parents, even when those beliefs go against the majority view. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).read more
Citations
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Correspondence in parents' and children's concepts of god: Investigating the role of parental values, religious practices and executive functioning
TL;DR: The authors examined the extent to which children's concepts of God correspond with their parents' concepts of a God and examined how parent context factors and children's executive functioning relate to parent-child conceptual similarity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Considering individual differences and variability is important in the development of the bifocal stance theory
TL;DR: In this article , the role of culture, developmental age-related differences, and the intersectionality of these and other individual's identities need to be more fully considered in this theoretical framework.
Journal ArticleDOI
Development of Religious Cognition
TL;DR: In this article , a review of the development of religious cognition is presented, with a particular focus on the cultural processes involved in the transmission of religious concepts and beliefs and the mechanisms of development of these concepts are made salient by the fact that these concepts involve deeply held personal and collective commitments on the part of adult members of distinct cultural groups defined by specific beliefs and practices.
Journal ArticleDOI
Never trust a stranger: Effects of explicit belief statements from strangers on children's reality status beliefs and beliefs about consensus.
TL;DR: The authors found that explicit belief statements from strangers did not influence children's beliefs, and that despite being attuned to these statements when spoken by parents, children may not be attune to explicit statements about reality that they hear from strangers.
References
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Going With the Flow Preschoolers Prefer Nondissenters as Informants
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Journal ArticleDOI
Young children's trust in their mother's claims: longitudinal links with attachment security in infancy.
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TL;DR: The strategy of relying on the mother or the stranger, depending on the available perceptual cues, was especially evident among secure children, whereas insecure-resistant children displayed more.