The development and diversity of religious cognition and behavior: Protocol for Wave 1 data collection with children and parents by the Developing Belief Network.

The Developing Belief Network is a consortium of researchers studying human development in diverse social-cultural settings, with a focus on the interplay between general cognitive development and culturally specific processes of socialization and cultural transmission in early and middle childhood. The current manuscript describes the study protocol for the network's first wave of data collection, which aims to explore the development and diversity of religious cognition and behavior. This work is guided by three key research questions: (1) How do children represent and reason about religious and supernatural agents? (2) How do children represent and reason about religion as an aspect of social identity? (3) How are religious and supernatural beliefs transmitted within and between generations? The protocol is designed to address these questions via a set of nine tasks for children between the ages of 4 and 10 years, a comprehensive survey completed by their parents/caregivers, and a task designed to elicit conversations between children and caregivers. This study is being conducted in 39 distinct cultural-religious groups (to date), spanning 17 countries and 13 languages. In this manuscript, we provide detailed descriptions of all elements of this study protocol, give a brief overview of the ways in which this protocol has been adapted for use in diverse religious communities, and present the final, English-language study materials for 6 of the 39 cultural-religious groups who are currently being recruited for this study: Protestant Americans, Catholic Americans, American members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jewish Americans, Muslim Americans, and religiously unaffiliated Americans.

Understanding the value of telescopic testimony: With age, a predominantly White Midwestern sample of children credits knowledge to speakers whose statements go beyond the evidence.

One primary value of testimony lies in its ability to extend our powers of observation. Do children credit more knowledge to speakers whose testimony goes beyond firsthand observation? The current study investigated 3- to 8-year-old children's (N = 180) and adults' (N = 20) knowledge attributions to speakers who made claims regarding perceptually evident features of a novel animal (e.g., "is brown") or claims regarding perceptually absent features (e.g., "eats insects"). By 7 years of age, children and adults attributed more knowledge to speakers who discussed telescopic information and generalized their knowledge to other domains. Because the knowledge base of child listeners expands with age, they place increased value on telescopic information and the speakers who provide it.

Greasing (small) palms: Early rejection of bribery.

We tested when U.S. children reject bribery, and whether their rejections vary by public versus private setting. Six- to 10-year-olds (224 children, 118 boys, 106 girls, majority-White) participated across four experiments, in which participants indicated whether a contest judge should accept a contestant's financial gift. Children conveyed their preferences while in public or in private (in the presence or absence of an adult experimenter). Children's rejections of bribes were found to increase with age. Notably, younger children's acceptance rate was higher when the experimenter was present than in their absence; in contrast, older children showed comparable rejection rates across settings. Limitations in children's early reasoning about bribery, including the reputational and moral implications of accepting bribes in public, are discussed.

Early presence of a "power = males" association: Girls link power to their gender less often than boys but can be as motivated to gain it.

In three studies, it was tested whether children (N = 184; aged 6-10 years, White, mid- to high income) from a U.S. midwestern city used other individuals' gender and race to predict who is in charge and the means by which power is gained (Study 1) and whether children's own gender predicted their assignments of positions of authority (Study 2A) and pursuits of positions of authority (Study 2B). When asked to predict who was in charge at different workplaces, with age White children decreased their race-based, power-related favoritism; children were increasingly likely with age to link White adults to rather questionable routes to power as well as Black adults with meritorious reasons for gaining power (Study 1). In addition, boys (but not girls) systematically associated power with adult workers of their own gender and did so regardless of whether or not power had been obtained meritoriously (Study 1). Nonetheless, when given the option to assign an authority role (Study 2A) or assume an authority role (Study 2B), boys and girls exhibited comparable levels of in-group and self-biases.

Belief, culture, & development: Insights from studying the development of religious beliefs and behaviors.

We describe the theoretical and methodological contributions of a cultural and developmental approach to the study of religious belief and behavior. We focus on how the study of religious development can provide a foothold into answering some key questions in developmental science: What is belief? What is culture? What is the nature of human development? Throughout the chapter, we provide examples of methodological innovations that have emerged over the course of the first year of a global, collaborative research project into the development of religious beliefs and behaviors.

Looking beyond person-specific cues indicative of credibility: Reward rules and executive function predict preschoolers' acceptance of (un)reliable assertions.

We tested whether 3- and 4-year-olds (N = 88) can deduce individuals' credibility exclusively from situational cues such as game rules that reward competitive or cooperative behavior-and whether children's inferences are predicted by their executive function (EF) and theory of mind (ToM) skills. When presented with the game rules, children endorsed a partner's claims more often if the rules incentivized cooperation between participants and partners (e.g., by giving them prizes when trusting each other) versus when the rules incentivized deception (e.g., by giving prizes to partners who tricked the children). Notably, children's appropriate responses to partners' claims increased as their EF skills improved regardless of whether the rules supported trust or skepticism. ToM was not related to children's rule-based selectivity. Preschoolers' ability to make inferences based on cooperative versus competitive reward rules to determine whether the children's partner can be trusted is key to learning from individuals whose reputation or past behavior is completely unknown. In addition, findings of associations between EF and vigilance about others' claims contribute to the epistemological debate of whether people start in life as credulous learners.

When multiracial individuals are the numerical majority: Children's racial attitudes in the Dominican Republic.

The Dominican Republic is a uniquely valuable context in which to study children's racial stereotyping and prejudice, in part because multiracial individuals comprise the majority of the population and race is viewed largely as a continuous rather than dichotomous construct. In two studies, we use developmental and social theories to ground an exploration of Dominican children's racial biases. In studies 1 (n = 54; ages 6-11) and 2 (n = 122; ages 6-11), children were given measures of racial identity, preference, stereotyping, and/or status. As expected, children identified their own race in a manner consistent with others (e.g., their teachers). Across a variety of tasks, children failed to consistently favor members of a specific racial group-as indicated by differing levels of racial stereotyping and associations of social status with different races. They did, however, sometimes systematically express greater liking of individuals of mixed racial heritage, a finding that was contingent on the modality of assessment (i.e., whether race was framed as a continuous vs. dichotomous category, and measured via nonforced vs. forced-choice methods). Implications for current theories of racial attitude development are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

The development of a morality against power abuse: The case of bribery.

In three experiments, we presented children and adults with opportunities to condemn acts resembling bribery, a prevalent form of power abuse. Adults and children (N = 333) in the United States rated the acceptability of actions by contest judges. Judges used their position in a self-serving (e.g., accepted or requested gifts from contestants prior to picking winners) versus responsible (e.g., rejected gifts, accepted gifts after judging) way. Across experiments, children by age 10 gave harsher ratings to judges who accepted or requested gifts prior to selecting the contest winners. Further, children expected judges to become biased (Experiment 1) and secretive (Experiment 2) if they accepted gifts during the contest. Children's judgments were influenced by characters' authority level (Experiment 3) and varied as a function of age and modality of assessment (e.g., whether gifts were accepted vs. rejected). Taken together, these results constitute evidence that by late childhood people showcase an emerging moral stance against unethical actions linked to authority-based corruption. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Playing by the rules: self-interest information influences children's trust and trustworthiness in the absence of feedback.

This study documented how children's decisions to trust and help partners in a game depend on the game's incentives. Adults, 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds (N=128) guessed the location of hidden prizes, assisted by a partner who observed the hiding. After each hiding event the partner shared information with participants about the prize's location. Participants earned prizes every time they guessed correctly. The partner earned prizes either from participants' correct (cooperation incentive) or incorrect (competition incentive) guesses. Children and adults trusted their partner more often when the game incentivized cooperation versus competition. A complementary pattern was observed when participants assisted their partner find prizes they observed being hidden: Participants strategically shared truthful information more often when the game rewarded cooperation.

Developmental differences in the relative weighing of informants' social attributes.

We examined whether similarity, familiarity, and reliability cues guide children's learning and whether these cues are weighed differently with age. Three- to 5-year-olds (n = 184) met 2 informant puppets, 1 of which was similar (Experiment 1) or familiar (Experiment 2) to the participants. Initially, children's preference for either informant was measured. Children selected similar and familiar informants--over dissimilar and unfamiliar ones--as information sources at above-chance levels. In Experiment 1 the similar informant later provided accurate or inaccurate information (counterbalanced). Children's initial preference for similar sources was modified by reliability cues. However, 5-year-olds continued to be influenced by similarity, being less likely to avoid inaccurate sources if similar than dissimilar. In Experiment 2 the familiar informant was later portrayed as interpersonally similar or dissimilar (counterbalanced). Only 5-year-olds were influenced by similarity, preferentially interacting with similar informants regardless of familiarity. These results suggest that similarity influences children's learning and that children's relative weighing of social cues varies with age--with younger children being especially focused on familiarity and older children being particularly attentive to similarity.