Introduction
A lot of events in life can be explained logically by natural explanations or illogically by supernatural explanations. During early and middle childhood, children can generate both types of explanations. Logical explanations are produced by using one’s understanding of physics, biology, psychology, causation, and other observations. Magical forces or powers and sometimes divine interventions are used to explain things not as easily understood.
The focus of this study is to investigate the likelihood that children are strongly inclined to produce natural explanations, leading them to use natural causes to explain outcomes even if the outcome is impossible. This could be influenced by the child’s religion and culture. It is
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Because young children often view improbable events as impossible, they might explain those events supernaturally. But, since they are possible in reality, they can also be explained logically. This experiment is also focused on children between the ages of six and seven because these ages fall within the range that children view probable events as impossible and it ensured that the children would have language skills adequate enough to give an intelligible response.
Methods
This study is actually made of two experiments. The participants of these experiments were made of 32 six- and seven-year-olds. The children were tested at their elementary schools. Demographics were not collected, but most were middle class from the Waterloo region of Canada. In this region, 79% of people are Caucasian and the main minorities are South Asian and Chinese. Of these, 68% are some type of Christian and 25% have no religious affiliations. The children for each experiment came from many different schools and different children were used in each experiment.
In Experiment 1, the children were told about three events: a man with a beard, a woman with a pet, and a man with a house. Children were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: improbable or impossible. Specifically, a man with a beard to his toes is improbable,
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