Davoodi Telli, Corriveau Kathleen H, Harris Paul L
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University.
School of Education, Boston University.
Dev Psychol. 2016 Feb;52(2):221-31. doi: 10.1037/dev0000079.
Children in the United States come to distinguish historical from fictional story figures between the ages of 3 and 5 years, guided by the plausibility of the story events surrounding the figure (Corriveau, Kim, Schwalen, & Harris, 2009; Woolley & Cox, 2007). However, U.S. children vary in their reactions to stories that include fantastical events. Secular children with no religious education think of such stories and their protagonists as fictional, whereas children who have had a religious education are more prone to think of them as historically true. In the current studies, we asked if a sample of children in Iran who are regularly exposed to religious narratives in their daily lives resemble religious children in the United States. As expected, Iranian 5- and 6-year-olds systematically categorized figures in realistic stories as real, but they were also prone to think of figures in fantastical stories as real. We suggest that children's willingness to conceive of figures in fantastical stories as real is explained by their exposure to religious narratives alleging that miracles have actually happened.
在美国，儿童在3至5岁之间开始能够区分历史人物和虚构故事人物，这一过程受到围绕该人物的故事事件合理性的引导（科里沃、金、施瓦伦和哈里斯，2009年；伍利和考克斯，2007年）。然而，美国儿童对包含奇幻事件的故事的反应各不相同。没有接受过宗教教育的世俗儿童认为这类故事及其主人公是虚构的，而接受过宗教教育的儿童则更倾向于认为它们在历史上是真实的。在当前的研究中，我们询问，在伊朗，那些在日常生活中经常接触宗教叙事的儿童样本，是否与美国的宗教儿童相似。正如预期的那样，伊朗5岁和6岁的儿童会系统地将现实故事中的人物归类为真实人物，但他们也倾向于将奇幻故事中的人物视为真实人物。我们认为，儿童之所以愿意将奇幻故事中的人物视为真实人物，是因为他们接触到了声称奇迹确实发生过的宗教叙事。
