Kids Exposed To Religion Have Difficulty Distinguishing Fact From Fiction

Aeroblast said:

What I'm saying is that 5-6 year olds are not experienced enough in the world to really know what they are talking about.

Would their answers change in 10 years time? 20? That's probably a more relevant study for me.

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I agree that information would be interesting, but you're missing the point of the research. You should read the article in the link posted by Luck Hax, which has more information. The purpose of the study is mentioned as being to disprove a theory stating children are "born believers".

Lotus the Cat said:

I agree that information would be interesting, but you're missing the point of the research. You should read the article in the link posted by Luck Hax, which has more information. The purpose of the study is mentioned as being to disprove a theory stating children are "born believers".

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But people in this thread are taking it much, much farther than that. I'm not even sure how it would disprove that children are born believers anyway; it's not like the secular children they talked to were being raised in a vacuum, without any mention of religion ever. All it proves is that children that are so young that they likely still believe in Santa Claus are less likely to think that fantastical stories are real if they didn't go to a parochial school or church; and even then, in the study less than 50% of the church-going parochial kids identified the stories as real.

Oryx said:

But people in this thread are taking it much, much farther than that. I'm not even sure how it would disprove that children are born believers anyway; it's not like the secular children they talked to were being raised in a vacuum, without any mention of religion ever. All it proves is that children that are so young that they likely still believe in Santa Claus are less likely to think that fantastical stories are real if they didn't go to a parochial school or church; and even then, in the study less than 50% of the church-going parochial kids identified the stories as real.

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It's pointless focusing on the hard numbers to say that "less than 50% of the church-going parochial kids identified the stories as real." as the arguments being made are in the comparison of the church going kids vs. the secular kids. Yes, only 50%, but that is far higher than the < 20% of secular children. This is a significant difference, which is the basis for the paper and their conclusions.

Lotus the Cat said:

It's pointless focusing on the hard numbers to say that "less than 50% of the church-going parochial kids identified the stories as real." as the arguments being made are in the comparison of the church going kids vs. the secular kids. Yes, only 50%, but that is far higher than the < 20% of secular children. This is a significant difference, which is the basis for the paper and their conclusions.

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But the study assumes that the secular children are a control, as if their lives came with no knowledge of religion and the fantastical. The abstract ends with "The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children's differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories." It acts like the secular children were raised without any knowledge of anything and therefore have no cultural experience, but the religious children are inundated with cultural experience through religion. The reality is probably somewhere in the middle; children that grow up knowing their parents don't believe in the fantastical influences them as well. They are not controls, like the study implies.

I found the abstract of the study on google scholar. When I'm back at work, I'll read the actual article and can post the statistics. It seems that there is a significant difference between secular and religious processing in fiction interpretation. That makes sense, given that religion is itself more or less a fictitious canon that is given the status of being real. However, I think people are jumping the gun a bit on what this means. The study doesn't portray this as a negative or concerning thing - just a quirk of how processing differs in children who have a different relationship with fiction. These results cannot be generalized to adults and do not say anything other than religiosity moderates the degree to which children can separate fact from fiction.

maccrash said:

how much is "significantly less able" though? there's no actual statistic there. unless I missed it, in which case my bad.

this looks like more entitled internet atheist ♥♥♥♥ that's just attempting to debunk religion more than it's already been debunked, though. I'm by no means a Devout Christian, but really these studies make me cringe just as much (if not more) than those who emphasize the pros of religion. sorry.

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I agree with you. These studies are very biased. I don't think religious people are automatically less intelligent than non-religious people. This is in the same category as those studies that claim that black people are less intelligent than white people.

zakisrage said:

I agree with you. These studies are very biased. I don't think religious people are automatically less intelligent than non-religious people. This is in the same category as those studies that claim that black people are less intelligent than white people.

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wellllll, I wouldn't go that far.

I read the paper itself. The researchers noted that they were aware that there could have been other variables involved in the religious childrens' inability to discern fact from fiction, although they personally insisted that it was mainly religion that caused this inability.

As a deeply religious person and a physicist at the same time, I cannot comment much on this. The researchers should replicate their study on older kids, maybe, as they have a stronger sense of knowledge of the concept of religion growing up.

The Void said:

I read the paper itself. The researchers noted that they were aware that there could have been other variables involved in the religious childrens' inability to discern fact from fiction, although they personally insisted that it was mainly religion that caused this inability.

As a deeply religious person and a physicist at the same time, I cannot comment much on this. The researchers should replicate their study on older kids, maybe, as they have a stronger sense of knowledge of the concept of religion growing up.

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They should. Every good scientist knows that in order to prove something they need to replicate their study over again, and if they get the same results then it'll be a strong sign their hypothesis (or their previous outcome) is correct. If they don't get the same then it's not, and there's likely something much deeper there.

The Void said:

I read the paper itself. The researchers noted that they were aware that there could have been other variables involved in the religious childrens' inability to discern fact from fiction, although they personally insisted that it was mainly religion that caused this inability.

As a deeply religious person and a physicist at the same time, I cannot comment much on this. The researchers should replicate their study on older kids, maybe, as they have a stronger sense of knowledge of the concept of religion growing up.

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The researchers aren't trying to prove that religious adults are less capable of discerning fact from fiction. They are looking at how children of a specific age tackle that. A possible direction to go would be to see at what age children with religion begin to understand the distinction between fiction and reality. I agree that replications are always a good thing, but I think people really don't understand what basic research is about here and are taking it to mean the researchers had x agenda or that they are trying to prove religion is a bad thing. Nothing is "proven" in research, even in the hard sciences, just implicated. I think that the hypothesis that children who are exposed to a lifestyle that blurs reality with fiction may have trouble telling reality from fiction during their earlier years is a very reasonable thought - and, in line with that, the results show evidence of this.

I haven't read the study, but I'm a bit confused as to how severe the difference is between children raised in religious households and children raised in nonreligious or nonpracticing households. I'm also confused as to how this can be accurately measured; children are already imaginative as it is. Is a difficulty in distinguishing truth from reality as a young child really something to be worried about, unless it progresses into adulthood?

To me, having difficulty distinguishing fact from fiction reminds me of someone who looks at an inanimate object and believes it to be alive and engaging. Or, someone who has grandiose ideas that are so far from reality (such as a world conspiracy aimed at helping or harming that person) that they cannot function in regular society. I think most religious people are relatively logical human beings, just like you and me. Sure, they may believe in a sky god with a white beard and a son who rose from the dead, but that doesn't mean they have trouble distinguishing truth and reality in other media.