Abstract
Extending prior research on belief attributions, we investigated the extent to which 5- to 8-year-olds and adults distinguish their beliefs and other humans’ beliefs from God's beliefs. In Study 1, children reported that all agents held the same beliefs, whereas adults drew greater distinctions among agents. For example, adults reported that God was less likely than humans to view behaviors as morally acceptable. Study 2 additionally investigated attributions of beliefs about controversial behaviours (e.g., telling prosocial lies) and belief stability. These data replicated the main results from Study 1 and additionally revealed that adults (but not children) reported that God was less likely than any other agent to think that controversial behaviours were morally acceptable. Furthermore, across ages, participants reported that another person's beliefs were more likely to change than either God's beliefs or their own beliefs. We discuss implications for theories regarding belief attributions and for religious and moral cognition. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject Preschoolers can attribute different beliefs to different humans Children and adults attribute greater cognitive capacities to God than to humans What the present study adds Children attribute the same moral beliefs to God and humans Adults distinguish among different agents’ minds when attributing moral beliefs Developmental differences are less pronounced in judgements of belief stability.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 467-481 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | British Journal of Developmental Psychology |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 2018 |
Funding
The authors wish to thank Lance Bush, Katherine Churchwell, Serena Entezary, Kayla Fries, Monica Oxenreiter, Julia Pingeton, Samuel Rosen, and Shannon Spencer for their assistance with data collection and coding; Davida Vogel for her assistance with manuscript preparation; and Paul Harris for his comments on this manuscript. The authors also wish to thank the Boston Children’s Museum for providing testing space. This work was supported by an NSF SBE PostDoctoral Fellowship (grant SMA-1408989) to LH, grant INDU CU16-1919 from the Indiana University School of Philanthropy to LH, and grant 52185 from the John Templeton Foundation to all of the authors. These institutions were not involved in decisions concerning study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit this article for publication.
Keywords
- moral cognition
- religion
- social cognitive development
- theory of mind
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Developmental and Educational Psychology
- Developmental Neuroscience