creators_name: Knight, Nicola
creators_name: Sousa, Paulo
creators_name: Barrett, Justin L.
creators_name: Atran, Scott
type: preprint
datestamp: 2003-10-04
lastmod: 2011-03-11 08:54:57
metadata_visibility: show
title: Children's attributions of beliefs to humans and God: cross-cultural evidence
subjects: dev-psy
subjects: comp-psy
subjects: cog-psy
full_text_status: public
keywords: False-belief tasks, God, religion, theory of mind, Yukatek Maya
note: Corresponding author: Nicola Knight, Departments of Psychology and Anthropology, University of Michigan; knightn@umich.edu
abstract: The capacity to attribute beliefs to others in order to understand action is one of the mainstays of human cognition. Yet it is debatable whether children attribute beliefs in the same way to all agents. In this paper, we present the results of a false-belief task concerning humans and God run with a sample of Maya children aged 4 to 7, and place them in the context of several psychological theories of cognitive development. Children were found to attribute beliefs in different ways to humans and God. The evidence also speaks to the debate concerning the universality and uniformity of the development of folk-psychological reasoning.

date: 2003
date_type: published
refereed: TRUE
referencetext: To appear in Cognitive Science
citation:   Knight, Nicola and Sousa, Paulo and Barrett, Justin L. and Atran, Scott  (2003) Children's attributions of beliefs to humans and God: cross-cultural evidence.  [Preprint]     
document_url: http://cogprints.org/2363/1/Knight_et_al._2004.pdf