Religious testimony in a secular society: Belief in unobservable entities among Chinese parents and their children.

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.

New Cognitive and Cultural Evolutionary Approaches on Atheism

“…This finding held irrespective of religious education and the children justified this with reference to ordinary causal constraints. There is evidence however, that as they continue to mature, a religious upbringing can influence children to treat religious narratives as though they were realistic (Cui, Clegg, Yan, Davoodi, Harris, & Corriveau, 2020;Corriveau, Chen, & Harris, 2014;Vaden & Woolley, 2011;Woolley & Cox, 2007). Notably, this pattern does not emerge for children with a secular upbringing, suggesting that, in the absence of religious socialization, children display a remarkable degree of skepticism (Cui et al, 2020;Chen, & Harris, 2014).…”

Beliefs about Unobservable Scientific and Religious Entities are Transmitted via Subtle Linguistic Cues in Parental Testimony

“…For example, US adults and children frequently refer to the causal powers of unobservable scientific and supernatural agents. Despite these crossdomain similarities in patterns of justification, children profess more confidence in the existence of scientific as compared to supernatural unobservables (among other endorsed entities), in most of the cultural contexts studied thus far Cui et al, 2019;Davoodi et al, 2020Davoodi et al, , 2018Guerrero, Enesco, & Harris, 2010;Harris & Corriveau, 2021;. One possible explanation for the differential level of confidence is that there is important linguistic variation in the testimony surrounding each type of entity.…”

“…Recent studies conducted in Mainland China highlight the importance of the home environment for children's developing beliefs about unobservable phenomena. Cui et al (2019) showed that parents and their children (both 5-to 6-yearolds and 9-to 11-year-olds) who adopted the majority secular view of this culture were skeptical about the existence of religious concepts. By contrast, Christian parents and their children (a minority group in China) were confident that religious entities exist.…”

“…We aimed to build upon previous research in the following ways. First, we replicated studies conducted in mainland China (e.g., Cui et al, 2019) and Iran (e.g., Davoodi et al, 2018) by investigating the possible relations between the ontological judgments of parents and their children in a society that is characterized by a broader diversity of religious practices and values, notably the United States. We chose to situate the current research questions in this context because, given the pluralistic standing of religiosity in many regions of the United States (Norris & Inglehart, 2011), as well as the formal separation between church and state institutions, the development of children's belief systems might primarily depend on the testimony they have access to at home.…”

“…The focus of the current report is on their ratings and discussion of a subset of these entities: three religious (i.e., God, Heaven, Angels) and three scientific (i.e., Germs, Oxygen, Electricity). We chose these items based on those used in the previous research that investigated relations among parent-child scientific and religious beliefs (Cui et al, 2019;Davoodi et al, 2018) and survey data that indicated a strong consensus about the existence and nonexistence of these entities within individuals in the United States (Clegg et al, 2019). We recruited parents and their 5-to 7-year-old children because previous studies have suggested that by this age, children are generally familiar with this subset of phenomena (Davoodi et al, 2020;.…”