What is it about?
The paper presents research with children in London and Madrid on their ideas and reasoning about the beliefs of humans, animals, and supernatural beings including God. Using a simple and well-known psychological experiment known as the 'Smarties test', children aged 5 to 9 years old are presented with a Smarties tube and shown that it contains rocks rather than Smarties. The experiment tests so-called 'false beliefs' because children are then asked whether others - who are not privy to the information about its actual content - would 'falsely' believe Smarties were inside the tube. Children in both locations attributed false beliefs to humans (their mother, friend and teacher), but less so to animals (dog, bear, and ladybird) and least to supernatural beings (superman, fairy, and especially God). There are some location differences. In London, fewer children attributed false beliefs to animals, which might be due to exposure to those 'agents' (such as with pets, in nature or through wildlife programmes), while more Muslim children believed that God would 'know' rocks were in the tube compared with other children, and the level of religiousness was associated with this belief. More Spanish (compared to British) children attributed false belief to God and this might reflect the more 'anthropomorphic' representations of God in the country's Catholic culture (such as having physical characterisation of religious figures).
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Why is it important?
Children's ideas of "what others are like", where these 'others' can be human or non-human, reflect their growing concepts about the abilities/limitations and intentions or motivations of people and other creatures as well as children's culture-specific experiences (such as education) with them. Their ideas and beliefs about human others are known to contribute to children's increasingly complex social interactions. Yet ideas about nonhuman others can reflect and contribute to their belief systems, understanding of fact versus fiction, and individual differences in relying on first-hand evidence versus second-hand testimonies, among other things. The cross-national variations can reflect how different cultures, customs and practices may influence these ideas among children differently.
Perspectives
As a piece of research that applied a simple method across two countries, I have found the key trends as well as variations among children's beliefs fascinating. I believe the findings have implications for not just theories and academia, but also educators, counsellors, and faith or pastoral workers. Children's responses that tell us about what they think others 'are like', those others being human and nonhuman, and what are their reasons behind those beliefs, including their backgrounds (faith and culture), show us their changing ideas about the 'nature' of beings (including themselves) in the universe during these formative years.
Dr Virginia L Lam
University of Roehampton
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Animals, Superman, Fairy and God: Children’s Attributions of Nonhuman Agent Beliefs in Madrid and London, Journal of Cognition and Culture, May 2020, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/15685373-12340074.
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