Witches, fairies and even vampires—the world of supernatural beings is the stuff of children’s stories because, we assume, children are more likely than adults to “believe” in these exciting creatures. We’re not often sure how fully children believe in such supernatural beings, but we do expect adults to draw a line more firmly than children between creatures for whose existence there is no scientific evidence and those for which there is—chickadees, gilla monsters, and paramecia.
Well, it seems, we just might be wrong. That, at least, is (roughly) the claim recently made by Cristine Legare, a researcher in the “Cognition, Culture and Development Laboratory” at the University of Texas. Writing in the June issue of Child Development, Dr. Legare reveals that as children become adults they tend increasingly to rely on supernatural explanations. Admidttedly her research is directed primarily not towards spooky creatures, but rather towards supernatural explanations for death, disease, and the origins of life—even when those explanations might include spooky creatures.
