Our current research protocol is designed with each of our three research questions in mind: what are children’s concepts of religious agents and entities, what do children understand about religious identity, and what are processes and practices of religious socialization. These descriptions draw on our more in-depth description of the studies implemented as part of the DBN’s Wave 1 Child Protocol (Weisman, Ghossainy, et al., 2024, PLOS ONE).

Each of the tasks described below has been translated into 14 languages (Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, English, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Malaysian, Mayan, Rutooro, Sepedi, Spanish, Tsimané, and Xitsonga), and adapted for each cultural-religious subsample (see “Field Sites”). The versions of the tasks used in the United States can be found here. All translated and adapted versions will be made publicly available soon.

All tasks were developed for children between the ages of 4-13 using the following process:
Step 1: Research team members who are experts in each topic divided into working groups to identify existing tasks that could address the relevant research question.
Step 2: Existing tasks were evaluated and updated as relevant; New tasks were designed if existing tasks did not meet the need or criteria of the project.
Step 3: The working group proposed the tasks to the full network of researchers, who provided feedback on the tasks.
Step 4: The full network worked together iteratively until all network members gave preliminary approval for the tasks.
Step 5: The tasks were presented through Semi-Structured Interviews to 2-3 educators, leaders, or parents for each field site sample. In particular, community members were asked (1) if the topics/questions were appropriate and relevant for children in their community, (2) to provide examples of sample-specific religious beliefs and practices (e.g., how should “God” be referred to, what religious holidays are most familiar to children in this age range, what religious norms would be most familiar to children in this age range).
Step 6: Feedback from the Semi-Structured Interviews was compiled; full task structures were revised when relevant and individual protocols were developed with sample-specific stimuli for each field site sample.
Step 7: Protocols were translated and back-translated.
Step 8: Protocols were piloted with children spanning the planned age-range within each field site sample.
Step 9: Minor revisions to protocols were coordinated across network teams as necessary.
Step 10: Finalized protocols were submitted to Institutional Review Boards for approval.
Step 11: Once IRB approval was secured, a version of each field site sample protocol for both children and parents was created by the Core Team Post-Doctoral Researchers in Qualtrics.
Step 12: Once Qualtics versions were ready for deployment, data collection began.

Religious Agents & Entities

What are the supernatural, spiritual, and religious entities, agents, forces, causes, etc., specific to each site?

Familiarity & Reality Status Task

Children indicate if they have heard of various natural, supernatural, and religious agents and their judgments about which of these agents are real.

Property Attributions Task

Children indicate if religious and supernatural agents are constrained (or unconstrained) by the “laws” of folk physics, biology, psychology, and sociology.

Justifications Task

Children have an open opportunity to share what they know about important religious agents (such as God), how they know it, and their sense of what other people in their communities believe about those beings.

Religious Identity

In each site, which aspects of religious identity are children tuned in to at a particular point in development, and what are the markers of religious identity?

Children indicate their familiarity with various indicators of religious group membership (i.e., beliefs, holidays, and practices that are typical of members of the child’s religion). Children also share their own sense of similarity to people who hold these beliefs, observe these holidays, or engage in these practices.

Religious Indicators Task

Social Essentialism Task

Children indicate if they believe that members of different religious groups have similar or different souls, or whether they can or cannot change their religious identity. Children are also asked these questions based on gender and wealth.

Norm Violations Task

Children share their familiarity with and reasoning about some of the most salient norms from their own religious group or a locally prevalent religious group (e.g., norms about eating certain kinds of meat). Children similarly indicate their thoughts about moral norms (e.g., norms about not harming others) and conventional norms (e.g, norms about what adults should wear to work).

Direct Questions Task

Children respond to open questions explicitly asking them about what religion is and their own religious identity.

Religious Socialization

How are religious and supernatural beliefs (including both formal religions and more traditional beliefs and practices) are passed down to the next generation in each site?

Child as Transmission Agent Task

Children share how they would introduce religious practices and rituals to an (imagined) peer who is new to the neighborhood and wants to learn how to fit into the participating child’s community.

Caregiver-Child Conversation Task

Caregivers and their children utilize a picture book to engage in conversations important and sometimes difficult topics, such as the origins of the world, illness and death, natural disasters, and intergroup conflict.

Caregiver Survey

We have developed an extensive survey that caregivers complete as they participate in this study. Parents provide various demographic information about the participating child (for example, age, educational experiences) and the home environment. Parents also answer questions about the child’s religious upbringing (for example, the child’s exposure to religious and spiritual practices, formal and informal religious education, and the language(s) they use in their own daily and religious lives).