Five‐ to 11‐year‐old U.S. children, from either a religious or secular background, judged whether story events could really happen. There were four different types of stories: magical stories violating ordinary causal regularities; religious stories also violating ordinary causal regularities but via a divine agent; unusual stories not violating ordinary causal regularities but with an improbable event; and realistic stories not violating ordinary causal regularities and with no improbable event. Overall, children were less likely to judge that religious and magical stories (...) could really happen than unusual and realistic stories although religious children were more likely than secular children to judge that religious stories could really happen. Irrespective of background, children frequently invoked causal regularities in justifying their judgments. Thus, in justifying their conclusion that a story could really happen, children often invoked a causal regularity, whereas in justifying their conclusion that a story could not really happen, they often pointed to the violation of causal regularity. Overall, the findings show that children appraise the likelihood of story events actually happening in light of their beliefs about causal regularities. A religious upbringing does not impact the frequency with which children invoke causal regularities in judging what can happen, even if it does impact the type of causal factors that children endorse. (shrink)

The goal of the present study was to assess the nature and development of children’s concepts of miracles — their understanding of what miracles are, their beliefs in miracles, and their use of miracles as an explanatory device. A total of 36 7–12-year-old children attending an Episcopal school were given a combination of tasks and structured interview questions. Parents filled out a family religiosity questionnaire. Results revealed multi-faceted conceptions of miracles, along with a high level of belief, and indicated that (...) children considered miracles an effective explanatory construct. We apply these findings to the general question of how children learn to explain their world. (shrink)