The power of untried children to key fact from fiction varies substantially with exposure to religion , two novel studies have encounter . Children who did not attend to parochial ( religious ) school or church building were significantly good at key out characters in spiritual or illusion history as pretend than those who did . The study have been published inCognitive Science .
For the investigations , researchers enrolled 5- and 6- year previous youngster and separated them intofour groups : children who attend public school and church , children who attend public school but not church , shaver who give ear parochial school and church and children who attend insular school but not church .
They then discover the children to three different type of stories- biblical ( religious ) , fantastic ( where the divine element was replaced with magic ) or realistic ( all supernatural elements removed ) . They then asked the tyke to judge whether the booster ( lead character ) was fancied or real .
Unsurprisingly , they found that all small fry judge the protagonist to be a real mortal in the naturalistic stories that described average events , regardless of spiritual background or schooling . However , when the children were read spiritual stories , such as Noah ’s ark , there were pregnant divergence in mind . Children exposed to religious belief , either through school or church , decided that the character were real , whereas laic tike judged them to be fictional .
what is more , when the child were translate fantastical tale where impossible events were either witching or non - wizard ( unexplained ) , the laic children were significantly better than religious children at identifying case as fictional . They found that children from spiritual desktop wouldrelyon faith for justify these wrong assortment .
In sum , this studysuggeststhat picture to religion has a profound impact on the ability of child to pick out reality from fiction , whether presented with religious ideas or fantasy stories .
The researchersacknowledgethat the bailiwick excogitation was not perfect . In finical , they recognize that it may not be exposure to religion that is causing these differences , but another variable that was not take into account in the study . Still , the researchers believe that religion is the most likely lend gene .
[ ViaHuffington Post , Cognitive Science , andPatheos ]
