8/16/2023 0 Comments Do 11 year olds believe in santaKapitany earned his PhD in developmental psychology, focusing on how children learn through imitation, and this led to his interest in the role of ritual in shaping beliefs. They are cannier than we give them credit for." Children do believe in these things at much higher rates than adults, but you can't just convince them that the boogeyman is under the bed. "Historically, in the field of psychology, it was held for a long time that children are gullible, which is very unfair," lead author Rohan Kapitany of Keene University told Ars. The fact that the milk and cookies are gone on Christmas morning serves as a form of indirect evidence, and when children interact with a Santa figure at the mall, it further reinforces that belief. Rituals like writing letters to Santa, or leaving out milk and cookies on Christmas eve, reinforce their belief in these ambiguous figures. Rather, such figures fall into an ambiguous category between "real" and "nonreal" for many children, indicating that their belief structures are much more nuanced than previously believed. But their belief in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, or similar cultural figures isn't quite as simple as that, according to a June paper published in the journal PLOS ONE. We tend to think young children are simply more gullible due to their tender years. Today: how children's belief in Santa Claus is part of a hierarchical pantheon of real and non-real figures.ĭo you believe in Santa Claus? If you're over the age of eight, you probably don't. So this year, we're once again running a special Twelve Days of Christmas series of posts, highlighting one science story that fell through the cracks in 2020, each day from December 25 through January 5. There's rarely time to write about every cool science-y story that comes our way.
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