Cognitive and contextual factors in the emergence of diverse belief systems: Creation versus evolution (2001)
| Venue: | Cognitive Psychology |
| Citations: | 63 - 10 self |
BibTeX
@ARTICLE{Evans01cognitiveand,
author = {E. Margaret Evans},
title = {Cognitive and contextual factors in the emergence of diverse belief systems: Creation versus evolution},
journal = {Cognitive Psychology},
year = {2001},
pages = {217--266}
}
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Abstract
The emergence and distribution of beliefs about the origins of species is investigated in Christian fundamentalist and nonfundamentalist school communities, with participants matched by age, educational level, and locale. Children (n � 185) and mothers (n � 92) were questioned about animate, inanimate, and artifact origins, and children were asked about their interests and natural-history knowledge. Preadolescents, like their mothers, embraced the dominant beliefs of their community, creationist or evolutionist; 8- to 10-year-olds were exclusively creationist, regardless of community of origin; 5- to 7-year-olds in fundamentalist schools endorsed creationism, whereas nonfundamentalists endorsed mixed creationist and spontaneous generationist beliefs. Children’s natural-history knowledge and religious interest predicted their evolutionist and creationist beliefs, respectively, independently of parent beliefs. It is argued that this divergent developmental pattern is optimally explained with a model of constructive interactionism: Children generate intuitive beliefs about origins, both natural and intentional, while communities privilege certain beliefs and inhibit others, thus engendering diverse belief systems. © 2001 Academic Press Key Words: analogy; conceptual development; constructivism; context; creationist; culture; essentialism; evolutionist; knowledge; naive biology, naive
Keyphrases
diverse belief system contextual factor natural-history knowledge certain belief fundamentalist school educational level divergent developmental pattern spontaneous generationist belief academic press key word parent belief christian fundamentalist conceptual development naive biology religious interest whereas nonfundamentalists creationist belief dominant belief mixed creationist artifact origin nonfundamentalist school community constructive interactionism inhibit others intuitive belief
