Oya Serbest presents Flash Talk at Cognitive Development Society pre-conference

Oya Presented a Flash Talk about "A cross-cultural comparison of the role of background religiosity in children's normative expectations from religious groups"  at Cognitive Development Society pre-conference

Oya gave a talk in the preconference meeting “Building a Global Research Collaborative: Experiences and Findings from the Developing Belief Network” at the Cognitive Development Conference in Pasadena. She presented findings from a cross-cultural project conducted in Turkey and the United States. We investigated if children expect theists to be more likely to follow norms than atheists and if such expectations vary based on “culture” and/or “family religiosity”. Six-13-year-old Turkish and American children were introduced to characters with conflicting religious beliefs (theist vs. atheist) and asked which had broken a social norm (moral or conventional norm). The results revealed that children tend to associate atheists (vs. theists) with norm-breaking behaviors from early ages regardless of how religious their family is or which culture they belong to. On the other hand, we found that family religiosity created nuances in expectations in younger ages but as children are socialized into their broader cultural mindset while growing up, the nuances in expectations disappear in older ages.