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Children in the United States come to distinguish historical from fictional story figures between the ages of 3 and 5 years, guided by the plausibility of the story events surrounding the figure (Corriveau, Kim, Schwalen, & Harris, 2009; Woolley & Cox, 2007). However, U.S. children vary in their reactions to stories that include fantastical events. Secular children with no religious education think of such stories and their protagonists as fictional, whereas children who have had a religious education are more prone to think of them as historically true. In the current studies, we asked if a sample of children in Iran who are regularly exposed to religious narratives in their daily lives resemble religious children in the United States. As expected, Iranian 5- and 6-year-olds systematically categorized figures in realistic stories as real, but they were also prone to think of figures in fantastical stories as real. We suggest that children's willingness to conceive of figures in fantastical stories as real is explained by their exposure to religious narratives alleging that miracles have actually happened.

Children's naïve theories about causal regularities enable them to differentiate factual narratives describing real events and characters from fictional narratives describing made-up events and characters (Corriveau, Kim, Schwalen, & Harris, Cognition 113 (2): 213–225, 2009). But what happens when children are consistently presented with accounts of miraculous and causally impossible events as real occurrences? Previous research has shown that preschoolers with consistent exposure to religious teaching tend to systematically judge characters involved in fantastical or religious events as real (Corriveau et al., Cognitive Science, 39 (2), 353–382, 2015; Davoodi et al., Developmental Psychology, 52 (2), 221, 2016). In the current study, we extended this line of work by asking about the scope of the impact of religious exposure on children's reality judgments. Specifically, we asked whether this effect is domain-general or domain-specific. We tested children in Iran, where regular exposure to uniform religious beliefs might influence children's reasoning about possibility in non-religious domains, in addition to the domain of religion. Children with no or minimal schooling (5- to 6-year-olds) and older elementary school students (9- to 10-year-olds) judged the reality status of different kinds of stories, notably realistic, unusual (but nonetheless realistic), religious, and magical stories. We found that while younger children were not systematic in their judgments, older children often judged religious stories as real but rarely judged magical stories as real. This developmental pattern suggests that the impact of religious exposure on children's reality judgments does not extend beyond their reasoning about divine intervention. Children's justifications for their reality judgments provided further support for this domain-specific influence of religious teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We asked whether high levels of religiosity are inconsistent with a high valuation of science. We explored this possibility in three countries that diverge markedly in the relation between the state and religion. Parents in the United States (n = 126), China (n = 234) and Iran (n = 77) completed a survey about their personal and parental stance towards science. The relation between religiosity and the valuation of science varied sharply by country. In the U.S. sample, greater religiosity was associated with a lower valuation of science. A similar but weaker negative relation was found in the Chinese sample. Parents in the Iranian sample, by contrast, valued science highly, despite high levels of religiosity. Given the small size of our United States and Iranian samples, and the non‐probabilistic nature of our samples in general, we caution readers not to generalise our findings beyond the current samples. Despite this caveat, these findings qualify the assumption that religiosity is inconsistent with the valuation of science and highlight the role of sociocultural context in shaping adults' perception of the relation between religion and science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parents in Iran, China and the United States were asked 1) about their potential influence on their children's religious and scientific views and 2) to consider a situation in which their children expressed dissent. Iranian and US parents endorsed their influence on the children's beliefs in the two domains. By contrast, Chinese parents claimed more influence in the domain of science than religion. Most parents spoke of influencing their children via Parent-only mechanisms in each domain (e.g., discussion, teaching), although US parents did spontaneously note Multiple sources for the transmission of religious views (e.g., church, other influential adults). Parents proposed a similar stance towards children's dissenting religious and scientific views. Chinese and US parents were more likely to express Supportive approaches and Iranian parents were more likely to express a Directive approach by comparison. The present research informs our understanding of the cultural transmission of views about science and religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children in the United States come to distinguish historical from fictional story figures between the ages of 3 and 5 years, guided by the plausibility of the story events surrounding the figure (Corriveau, Kim, Schwalen, & Harris, 2009; Woolley & Cox, 2007). However, U.S. children vary in their reactions to stories that include fantastical events. Secular children with no religious education think of such stories and their protagonists as fictional, whereas children who have had a religious education are more prone to think of them as historically true. In the current studies, we asked if a sample of children in Iran who are regularly exposed to religious narratives in their daily lives resemble religious children in the United States. As expected, Iranian 5- and 6-year-olds systematically categorized figures in realistic stories as real, but they were also prone to think of figures in fantastical stories as real. We suggest that children's willingness to conceive of figures in fantastical stories as real is explained by their exposure to religious narratives alleging that miracles have actually happened. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Across cultures, studies report more confidence in the existence of unobservable scientific phenomena, such as germs, as compared to unobservable religious phenomena, such as angels. We investigated a potential cultural mechanism for the transmission of confidence in the existence of invisible entities. Specifically, we asked whether parents in societies with markedly different religious profiles—Iran and China—signal differential confidence across the domains of science and religion during unmoderated conversations with their children (N = 120 parent-child dyads in total; 5- to 11-year-olds). The results revealed that parents used fewer lexical cues to uncertainty when discussing scientific phenomena, as compared to religious phenomena. Unsurprisingly, this cross-domain distinction was observed among majority belief, secular parents in China (Study 2). More importantly, however, the same pattern was observed among parents in Iran, a highly religious society (Study 1), as well as among minority belief, religious parents in China (Study 2). Thus, adults in markedly different belief communities spontaneously express less confidence in religious, as compared to scientific, invisible entities in naturalistic conversation. These findings contribute to theories on the role of culture and testimony in the development of beliefs about unobservable phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children hold beliefs about religious and scientific entities, such as angels or germs, that they cannot directly observe or interact with. Given their limited opportunities for first-hand observation, children's beliefs in these entities are a clear example of cultural learning and are likely to vary based on cultural factors. In the present study, we investigated variation in the epistemic stance of 4-11-year-old children growing up in a religious minority in China (N = 47), a religious majority in Iran (N = 85), and a religious majority in the U.S. (N = 74). To assess the role of community status as a domain-specific, as opposed to a domain-general, factor contributing to children's beliefs about unobservable entities, we compared children's beliefs about religious unobservable entities with their beliefs about scientific unobservable entities in these three communities. In all three communities, younger and older children were confident that unobservable religious and scientific entities exist. However, compared to children in Iran and the U.S., children from the religious minority group in China were more likely to justify their ontological beliefs about religious entities by appealing to the source of their beliefs. These results highlight the impact of community status on learning from testimony about unobservable entities. Additionally, the results show that under certain circumstances - notably when holding minority beliefs - tracking the source of beliefs serves as a central epistemic justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]