Children's Acceptance of Conflicting Testimony: The Case of Death

Abstract

Children aged 7 and 11 years were interviewed about death in the context of two different narratives. Each narrative described the death of a grandparent but one narrative provided a secular context whereas the other provided a religious context. Following each narrative, children were asked to judge whether various bodily and mental processes continue to function after death, and to justify their judgment. Children displayed two different conceptions of death. They often acknowledged that functioning ceases at death and offered appropriate biological justifications for that judgment. However, they also claimed that functioning continues after death and offered appropriate religious justifications. The tendency to claim that functioning continues after death was more frequent among older children than younger children, more frequent in the context of the religious narrative as opposed to the secular narrative and more frequent with respect to mental processes than bodily processes. Particularly among older children, two distinct conceptions of death appear to co-exist: a biological conception in which death implies the cessation of living processes and a metaphysical conception in which death marks the beginning of the afterlife.

Two paradigms for religious representation: The physicist and the playground (a reply to Levy)

“…They are less likely to say that an ancestor can see or think when asked in a non--ritual setting, and Levy and I agree that this merits reflection. Similar results emerge in studies in Spain (Harris and Giménez, 2005), in Austin, Texas, and on the Melanesian island Vanuatu (Watson--Jones et al, 2016).…”

The supernatural guilt trip does not take us far enough

“…In contrast, such language was an important manipulated variable for both Harris and Gimé nez (2005) and Astuti and Harris (submitted). Furthermore, the coding procedures used to determine whether children attributed continued psychological functioning to a dead agent meaningfully differed between our studies and those described by Harris & Astuti.…”

“…From an evolutionary perspective, it is important to first ask whether humans "naturally" reason about death as a transitional state of consciousness or simply acquire such ideas through cultural exposure (perhaps from adults who "invent" such notions to ameliorate their own death anxiety; see, e.g., Dechesne et al 2003;Harris & Gimé nez 2005). Although conventional wisdom tends to favor a general learning hypothesis for the origins of afterlife beliefs, recent findings suggest a more complicated developmental picture.…”

“…We think the developmental pattern is more complex than Bering allows and that, on close examination, it underlines a crucial role for religious teaching. First, two recent studies indicate that continuity claims increase rather than decrease with age, both in Spain (Harris & Gimé nez 2005) and in Madagascar (Astuti & Harris, submitted). The most plausible explanation of this age change is that as they get older, children are increasingly likely to encounter and assimilate afterlife beliefs in their community.…”

“…When asked about death in the context of religious practices, beliefs in continuity are activated; when asked about death in the context of medical or secular practices, beliefs in discontinuity are activated (Astuti & Harris, submitted;Harris & Gimé nez 2005). This contextsensitivity is mirrored in everyday life: A dead corpse may be prepared for burial with no expectation that it retains sentience; the dead person, by contrast, may well be attributed thoughts and feelings (see Astuti [forthcoming b] for an ethnographic illustration from Madagascar).…”