Belief, culture, &amp; development: Insights from studying the development of religious beliefs and behaviors

Richert, Rebekah A.; Weisman, Kara; Lesage, Kirsten A.; Ghossainy, Maliki E.; Reyes-Jaquez, Bolivar; Corriveau, Kathleen H.

doi:10.1016/bs.acdb.2021.11.002

Cited by 7 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…In addition, as noted above, the ways in which beliefs about prayer were operationalized in the current study may not have allowed for participants to enunciate religious variation in beliefs about prayer. Future studies should continue to aim to recruit from a diverse range of religious belief systems and should work with religious communities to identify their values and goals for engaging children in religious activities such as prayer (e.g., Richert et al 2022).…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asking God for Help: Children’s Views on What to Pray for When

Shaman,

Saide,

Richert

et al. 2023

Religions

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By the end of early childhood, children indicate that prayer is more effective than wishes or magic to prevent an unwanted, negative outcome from occurring. However, research has not yet delineated whether children would ask God to resolve a problem by changing the internal state of the person facing the problem (e.g., changing someone’s desires or emotions) or changing the external state of the world (e.g., physical or biological change). The current study examined if children request God to act through psychological or physical mechanisms. The participants were 122 4-to-8-year-old children (M = 6.160, SD = 0.918; 63.0% female) who returned to be interviewed for the third wave of a six-wave longitudinal study. The sample was racially–ethnically and religiously diverse. Children heard stories about characters facing two different problems. The results revealed that the children demonstrated a preference for petitioning for physical solutions, rather than biological, psychological, or emotion regulation solutions. The preferences did not vary by religious affiliation, religious exposure, or age. However, children with a more sophisticated social cognition ranked petitioning for physical changes higher. These findings suggest that children’s understanding of prayer (in this case, the most efficient ways for God to answer prayers) involves their coordination of developing folk theories about the world.

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Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Asking God for Help: Children’s Views on What to Pray for When

Shaman,

Saide,

Richert

et al. 2023

Religions

Self Cite

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show abstract

“…The experimenter asked the child to perform the modelled actions, allowing them to relay their newly acquired information verbally and physically, which has been shown to strengthen beliefs (Richert et al 2022). The experimenter then asked the child to identify which of the objects was magical and rate the degree of perceived magic associated with each item using the size-based Likert scale.…”

Section: Egg Trial Ball Trial Ritual Amentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Ritual in Children’s Acquisition of Supernatural Beliefs

Mathiassen,

Nielsen

2023

Religions

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This study investigated how observing the ritualisation of objects can influence children’s encoding and defence of supernatural beliefs. Specifically, we investigated if ritualising objects leads children to believe those objects might be magical, buffering against favouring contrary evidence. Seventy-nine children, aged between 3 and 6 years, were presented with two identical objects (e.g., two colour-changing stress balls) and tasked with identifying which was magical after being informed that one had special properties (e.g., could make wishes come true). In a Ritual condition, an adult acted on one of the objects using causally irrelevant actions and on the other using functional actions. In an Instrumental condition, both objects were acted on with functional actions. The children were given a normative rule relating to the use of the objects and an opportunity to imitate the actions performed on them. A second adult then challenged their magical belief. Ritualistic actions increased the likelihood of children attributing magical powers to the associated object but did not affect resistance to change or adherence to normative rules. However, children who engaged in ritual actions protested more when the magical belief was challenged. Our findings suggest that rituals can play an important role in shaping children’s perception and defence of supernatural beliefs.

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From Prayer to Practice: Children's Religious Understanding and Outgroup Prosocial Behaviours

Zammit,

Hennessy,

Borinca

et al. 2024

Community & Applied Soc Psy

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In a religiously diverse world, understanding how young children perceive and interact with peers from other religious groups is pivotal for promoting harmony from an early age. The study examines how children's understanding of an outgroup religion is associated with their prosocial behaviours towards children from that religion. Conducted with 210 children aged 3–6 years (mean = 4.19 years; 50.7% boys) from the majority religion (Catholic) in state schools in Malta, we assessed children's religious understanding through identification of ingroup religious symbols, and prayer. Additionally, we measured children's outgroup (i.e., Muslim) religious understanding through outgroup prayer. Children's prosocial behaviours were assessed through their costly giving of stickers to outgroup children. Findings indicate that outgroup religious understanding moderated the link between children's religious understanding and outgroup giving. Specifically, outgroup religious understanding dampened the association between ingroup religious understanding and outgroup giving for children with higher ingroup religious understanding. Implications of children's outgroup religious understanding on prosocial behaviours are discussed.

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Belief, culture, & development: Insights from studying the development of religious beliefs and behaviors

Cited by 7 publications

References 70 publications

Asking God for Help: Children’s Views on What to Pray for When

Asking God for Help: Children’s Views on What to Pray for When

The Role of Ritual in Children’s Acquisition of Supernatural Beliefs

From Prayer to Practice: Children's Religious Understanding and Outgroup Prosocial Behaviours

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