University of Arkansas, USA Universitat Jaume I, Castelló de la Plana, Spain Florida Atlantic University, USA.
Br J Dev Psychol. 2005 Nov;23(4):587-607. doi: 10.1348/026151005X36498.
Children aged from 4;10 to 12;9 attending either a Catholic school or a public, secular school in an eastern Spanish city observed a puppet show in which a mouse was eaten by an alligator. Children were then asked questions about the dead mouse's biological and psychological functioning. The pattern of results generally replicated that obtained earlier in an American sample, with older children being more apt to state that functions cease after death than younger children (11- to 12-year-olds > 8- to 9-year-olds > 5- to 6-year-olds), and all children being more likely to attribute epistemic, desire, and emotion states to the dead mouse than biological, psychobiological, and perceptual states. Although children attending Catholic school were generally more likely to state that functions continue after death than children attending secular school, the pattern of change with regard to question type did not differ between the Catholic and secular groups. The results were interpreted as reflecting the combined roles of religious instruction/exposure and universal ontogeny of cognitive abilities on the development of children's afterlife beliefs.
年龄在 4 岁 10 个月至 12 岁 9 个月之间的儿童，分别在西班牙东部的一所天主教学校或一所公立世俗学校观看了一场木偶表演，其中一只老鼠被一只短吻鳄吃掉了。然后，孩子们被问到关于死去老鼠的生物和心理功能的问题。结果模式通常与早些时候在美国样本中获得的结果相似，年龄较大的孩子比年龄较小的孩子更有可能表示功能在死亡后停止（11 至 12 岁的孩子> 8 至 9 岁的孩子> 5 至 6 岁的孩子），所有孩子比生物、心理生物学和感知状态更有可能将认知、欲望和情感状态归因于死去的老鼠。尽管上天主教学校的孩子通常比上世俗学校的孩子更有可能表示功能在死后继续存在，但天主教和世俗群体在问题类型上的变化模式没有差异。研究结果被解释为反映了宗教教育/接触和认知能力普遍发生的共同作用对儿童来世信仰发展的影响。
