In the name of God: How children and adults judge agents who act for religious versus secular reasons.

摘要: Many people are guided by religious beliefs, but judgments of religiously and secularly motivated individuals remain unclear. We investigated reasoning about versus characters among 5- to 10-year-olds adults. In Study 1, theist non-theist children reported similar attitudes toward theists; however, large differences emerged between 2 obtained results using a continuous, rather than forced choice, measure preference. Additionally, Studies 2–3 tested two explanations for the stronger influence background on adults’ children’s responses. did not find strong evidence theistic majority account, which posits that greater perceived prevalence theists as compared with non-theists influenced responses more The 3 were consistent intuition argues adults had effortfully overridden teleological intuitions may have in 1–2 potentially led prefer whose beliefs line own intuitions. degree persisted implicitly predicted those pro-theist preferences. These findings offer connections other areas social cognition, such preferences teleology.