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Kiessling F, Perner J. God-mother-baby: what children think they know. Child Dev. 2013;85(4):1601-16doi: 10.1111/cdev.12210.
Kiessling, F., & Perner, J. (2014). God-mother-baby: what children think they know. Child development, 85(4), 1601-16. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12210
Kiessling, Florian, and Perner, Josef. "God-mother-baby: what children think they know." Child development vol. 85,4 (2014): 1601-16. doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12210
Kiessling F, Perner J. God-mother-baby: what children think they know. Child Dev. 2014 Jul-Aug;85(4):1601-16. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12210. Epub 2013 Dec 18. PMID: 24350816.
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Child Dev. 2014 Jul-Aug;85(4):1601-16. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12210. Epub 2013 Dec 18.

God-mother-baby: what children think they know.

Child development

Florian Kiessling, Josef Perner

Affiliations

  1. University of Salzburg; University of Oxford.

PMID: 24350816 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12210

Abstract

This study tested one hundred and nine 3- to 6-year-old children on a knowledge-ignorance task about knowledge in humans (mother, baby) and God. In their responses, participants not reliably grasping that seeing leads to knowing in humans (pre-representational) were significantly influenced by own knowledge and marginally by question format. Moreover, knowledge was attributed significantly more often to mother than baby and explained by agent-based characteristics. Of participants mastering the task for humans (representational), God was largely conceived as ignorant "man in the sky" by younger and increasingly as "supernatural agent in the sky" by older children. Evidence for egocentrism and for anthropomorphizing God lends support to an anthropomorphism hypothesis. First-time evidence for an agent-based conception of others' knowledge in pre-representational children is presented.

© 2013 The Authors. Child Development © 2013 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

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