Previous research has shown that children and adults express more confidence in the existence of unobservable scientific (e.g., germs), as compared to religious, phenomena (e.g., the soul). We asked if the same pattern would emerge among parents (N = 77) and children (N = 85) in Iran, a country with widespread commitment to religious values and beliefs. Parents expressed confidence in the existence of various scientific and religious phenomena but were more confident that scientific phenomena exist. Moreover, even though Iranian parents expressed a high valuation of both science and religion, their valuation of science was higher than that of religion. Like their parents, older children also expressed greater confidence in the existence of scientific, as compared to religious, phenomena. We conclude that with age, the kind of discourse children are exposed to elicits more confidence in the existence of scientific phenomena even in a religious society.

How did the universe come to exist? What happens after we die? Answers to existential questions tend to elicit both scientific and religious explanations, offering a unique opportunity to evaluate how these domains differ in their psychological roles. Across 3 studies (N = 1,647), we investigate whether (and by whom) scientific and religious explanations are perceived to have epistemic merits-such as evidential and logical support-versus nonepistemic merits-such as social, emotional, or moral benefits. We find that scientific explanations are attributed more epistemic merits than are religious explanations (Study 1), that an explanation's perceived epistemic merits are more strongly predicted by endorsement of that explanation for science than for religion (Study 2), and that scientific explanations are more likely to be generated when participants are prompted for an explanation high in epistemic merits (Study 3). By contrast, we find that religious explanations are attributed more nonepistemic merits than are scientific explanations (Study 1), that an explanation's perceived nonepistemic merits are more strongly predicted by endorsement of that explanation for religion than for science (Study 2), and that religious explanations are more likely to be generated when participants are prompted for an explanation high in nonepistemic merits (Study 3). These findings inform theories of the relationship between religion and science, and they provide insight into accounts of the coexistence of scientific and religious cognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

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. (PsycINFO Database Record

Theoretically and empirically, parenting is closely related to the psychological health of offspring, but long-term effects and possible international differences are not well established. In a pre-registered multilevel modeling analysis using data from the Global Flourishing Study, we tested whether retrospective parent-child relationship quality predicts adult well-being in a representative sample of 202,898 adults living in 21 countries and one territory. We developed and validated indexes of flourishing and mental health. Retrospective parent-child relationship quality predicted both with substantial effect sizes for flourishing (std mean effect = 0.21, 95% CI 0.19–0.23) and mental health (std mean effect = 0.18, 95% CI 0.17–0.20). A positive association between relationship quality and flourishing was found in all 22 areas (significant in 21). Parental religiosity positively predicted relationship quality (std mean effect = 0.09, 95% CI 0.06–0.11). In higher income and more secular countries, relationship quality was lower, but the well-being benefits were higher. Parental religiosity predicted higher relationship quality in every country in the sample.