Anthropomorphism or Preparedness? Exploring Children's God Concepts

Historically, the development of God concepts in human cognition has been explained anthropomorphically. In other words, for children especially, God is a big, superhuman who lives in the sky. Recent empirical research on the development of these concepts may suggest an alternative hypothesis. In th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Review of religious research
Authors: Barrett, Justin L. (Author) ; Richert, Rebekah A. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 2003
In: Review of religious research
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Parallel Edition:Non-electronic
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Summary:Historically, the development of God concepts in human cognition has been explained anthropomorphically. In other words, for children especially, God is a big, superhuman who lives in the sky. Recent empirical research on the development of these concepts may suggest an alternative hypothesis. In this paper, we review this research and outline the "preparedness hypothesis," which suggests that children may be cognitively equipped to understand some properties of God in a non-anthropomorphic way.
ISSN:2211-4866
Contains:Enthalten in: Review of religious research
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.2307/3512389