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Children and adults appreciate that physical action is typically the conduit between individuals' desires and the fulfillment of those desires. However, certain forms of petitionary thought -- e.g., wishing and praying -- are believed by many people to influence the external world and fulfill desires without direct physical action. We examine whether children's and adults' predictions about the occurrence of desired events differs based on: (1) the ways in which desires are expressed (wishing vs. praying), (2) whether desired events are plausible vs. impossible, and (3) participants' religious backgrounds. Children ages 3- to 11-years (n = 144) and young adults (n = 85) were read scenarios in which a protagonist either wished or prayed for a desired event to occur. Some of the desired events could plausibly happen with ordinary human intervention and others were impossible, even with human intervention. Preschoolers often predicted that desired events would obtain; with increasing age, participants judged that fewer events would obtain. Participants' predictions varied by the probability of the desired event -- across the entire age-range participants predicted that impossible events would obtain less often than plausible events. Thus, participants' everyday probabilistic reasoning was imported into their reasoning about the fulfillment of supernatural petitions. Children's and adults' religious experiences predicted their judgments that events would obtain if they had been prayed for, but not if they had been wished for. Thus, the effects of socio-cultural experience did not globally pervade children's and adults' probabilistic reasoning, but were specific to certain contexts about which they reasoned.

We examine how understandings of ordinary and extraordinary communication develop. Three- to 10-year-old children and adults (N = 183) were given scenarios in which a protagonist wanted help from a human (their parent) or from God. Scenarios varied in whether protagonists expressed their desires aloud (by asking) or silently (by hoping), whether (for human scenarios) parents were nearby or far away, and whether (for God scenarios) protagonists expressed desires through ordinary means (asking or hoping) or more extraordinary means (praying). Following each scenario, participants were asked whether the recipient (either the parent or God) was aware of the protagonist's desire. Children as young as 3 to 4 years old understood that both loudness and distance limit the effectiveness of human communication, reporting that humans would most likely be aware of desires when they were expressed both aloud and nearby. As well, by this age children reported that God would more often be aware of desires than would humans, but children of all ages often reported that God (like humans) would be more aware of desires expressed aloud (rather than silently). These concepts of ordinary and extraordinary communication continued to be refined through middle childhood. Children's performance on standard theory-of-mind tasks and participants' religious background predicted whether they attributed awareness to God.

Individuals in many cultures believe in omniscient (all-knowing) beings, but everyday representations of omniscience have rarely been studied. To understand the nature of such representations requires knowing how they develop. Two studies examined the breadth of knowledge (i.e., types of knowledge) and depth of knowledge (i.e., amount of knowledge within domains) that preschoolers, elementary-school children, and adults (N = 180) attributed to an all-knowing being. Preschoolers often reported that an omniscient mind would lack many types of knowledge, and they completely failed to understand the depth of omniscient knowledge. With increasing age, children approached an understanding of omniscience--attributing broader and deeper knowledge to an omniscient agent--but only adults firmly understood the depth of omniscient knowledge. We identify socio-cultural and cognitive factors that correlate with children's understandings of omniscience. Findings demonstrate that childhood representations of fallible, limited, human minds both make possible and constrain developing representations of radically non-human minds.

We examine how understandings of ordinary and extraordinary communication develop. Three- to 10-year-old children and adults (N = 183) were given scenarios in which a protagonist wanted help from a human (their parent) or from God. Scenarios varied in whether protagonists expressed their desires aloud (by asking) or silently (by hoping), whether (for human scenarios) parents were nearby or far away, and whether (for God scenarios) protagonists expressed desires through ordinary means (asking or hoping) or more extraordinary means (praying). Following each scenario, participants were asked whether the recipient (either the parent or God) was aware of the protagonist's desire. Children as young as 3 to 4 years old understood that both loudness and distance limit the effectiveness of human communication, reporting that humans would most likely be aware of desires when they were expressed both aloud and nearby. As well, by this age children reported that God would more often be aware of desires than would humans, but children of all ages often reported that God (like humans) would be more aware of desires expressed aloud (rather than silently). These concepts of ordinary and extraordinary communication continued to be refined through middle childhood. Children's performance on standard theory-of-mind tasks and participants' religious background predicted whether they attributed awareness to God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals in many cultures believe in omniscient (all-knowing) beings, but everyday representations of omniscience have rarely been studied. To understand the nature of such representations requires knowing how they develop. Two studies examined the breadth of knowledge (i.e., types of knowledge) and depth of knowledge (i.e., amount of knowledge within domains) that preschoolers, elementary-school children, and adults (N = 180) attributed to an all-knowing being. Preschoolers often reported that an omniscient mind would lack many types of knowledge, and they completely failed to understand the depth of omniscient knowledge. With increasing age, children approached an understanding of omniscience—attributing broader and deeper knowledge to an omniscient agent—but only adults firmly understood the depth of omniscient knowledge. We identify socio-cultural and cognitive factors that correlate with children’s understandings of omniscience. Findings demonstrate that childhood representations of fallible, limited, human minds both make possible and constrain developing representations of radically non-human minds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]