ABSTRACT

We explored the role of parental testimony in children’s developing beliefs about the ontological status of typically unobservable phenomena. US parents and their 5- to 7-year-old children (N = 25 dyads) separately rated their confidence in the existence of scientific and religious unobservable entities (e.g., germs, angels), and were invited to engage in an unmoderated dyadic conversation about the entities. Both parents and children were more confident in the existence of the scientific entities compared to the religious entities. Parental religiosity predicted the strength of their belief in the religious entities, and these beliefs were positively associated with their children’s judgments in the domain of religion. We coded parental testimony produced during the unmoderated conversation for a number of subtle linguistic cues that convey their confidence and prevailing beliefs in an entity’s existence. The results revealed consistent cross-domain differences: parents expressed more uncertainty, were more likely to mention variation in people’s beliefs and make explicit claims about the ontological status of the religious, as compared to the scientific entities. However, with increasing religiosity, parents produced fewer cues to uncertainty, mentioned belief variation less often, and were more likely to make claims of endorsement when talking about the religious unobservables. Importantly, the pattern of coded linguistic cues in parental testimony was significantly associated with children’s ontological judgments. The present findings have implications for understanding the socio-cultural mechanisms by which confidence in the existence of invisible agents and processes develops in childhood.

摘要

我们探讨了父母的证词在儿童对典型不可观察现象的本体论地位的发展信念中的作用。美国父母和他们 5 到 7 岁的孩子（N = 25 对）分别评价他们对科学和宗教不可观察实体（例如细菌、天使）存在的信心，并被邀请进行无节制的二元对话关于实体。与宗教实体相比，父母和孩子都对科学实体的存在更有信心。父母的宗教信仰预示着他们对宗教实体的信仰强度，这些信仰与孩子在宗教领域的判断呈正相关。我们将在未经调节的对话中产生的父母证词编码为一些微妙的语言线索，这些线索传达了他们对实体存在的信心和普遍信念。结果揭示了一致的跨域差异：父母表达了更多不确定性，更可能提到在人们的观念变化，并做出本体论地位明确要求宗教的，相比于科学的实体。然而，随着宗教信仰的增加，父母对不确定性产生的暗示越来越少，提到信仰变化的频率越来越低，并且在谈论宗教不可观察性时更有可能声称认可。重要的是，父母证词中编码语言线索的模式与儿童的本体论判断显着相关。目前的研究结果对理解社会文化机制具有重要意义，通过这些机制，人们对童年时期存在的隐形代理和过程的信心得以发展。