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Working across religions, cultures, settings, and development: Protocol for wave 2 data collection with children and parents by the developing belief network

Williams-Gant AJ 1 , Weisman K 2 , Amin TG 3 , Ghossainy ME 1 , Soueidan G 4 , Nissel J 1 Show all authors , Kenderla P 2 , Abdel-Hak M 1 , Anggoro FK 5 , Bangayan S 6 , Burdett ERR 7 , Chau E 8 , Chen EE 9 , Chua J 10 , Coetzee L 11 , Coley JD 12 , Dahl A 13 , Dautel JB 14 , Davis EL 2 , Davis HE 15 , DeLeon A 1 , Diesendruck G 16 , Evans D 11 , Feeney A 14 , Fong FTK 17 , Foo X 18 , Garcia A 2 , Gonzalez-Rubio I 6 , Guerrero Galaz E 2 , Gurven M 19 , Hu Y 20 , Huachorunto K 6 , Indrawati K 21 , Jee BD 22 , Kahwa M 23 , Kahwa U 23 , Korah R 24 , Kramer HJ 25 , Kushnir T 26 , Kyriakopoulou N 27 , Lebepe S 11 , Lee HJ 2 , Lesage KA 1 , Leshabana P 11 , Li D 28 , Li PH 25 , Llacua JT 6 , Maluleke V 11 , Marin A 2 , Marshall J 29 , Masebe N 11 , McAuliffe K 6 , McLaughlin A 6 , McMullan A 18 , McShane C 14 , Min C 2 , Mutegeki M 23 , Namara O 23 , Nichols S 30 , Nicolopoulou A 31 , Nielsen M 18 , Otali E 23 , Parise K 32 , Paucar XA 6 , Payir A 33 , Poonawalla S 2 , Reyes-Jaquez B 34 , Riddick S 6 , Rockers PC 35 , Ruiz JK 1 , Sanjidah R 2 , Shneidman L 36 , Skopeliti I 37 , Srinivasan M 8 , Stegall J 26 , Stephens J 7 , Stutesman MG 14 , Sun J 2 , Tarullo A 38 , Taylor LK 39 , Theogen I 23 , Toong D 40 , Turan-Küçük EN 38 , Tusiime P 23 , Ventura EP 6 , Xu J 1 , Ye N 1 , Yu Y 10 , Yucel M 26 , Zhang W 20 , Zhao X 20 , Corriveau KH 1 , Richert RA 2 , Developing Belief Network

Affiliations 

  • 1 Wheelock College of Education & Human Development, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
  • 2 Department of Psychology, University of California, Riverside, California, United States of America
  • 3 Department of Education, American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
  • 4 Department of Language Sciences and Traductology, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon
  • 5 Department of Psychology, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
  • 6 Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States of America
  • 7 School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom
  • 8 Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, California, United States of America
  • 9 College of Education, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, Republic of China
  • 10 Singapore Centre for Character and Citizenship Education, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
  • 11 Health Economics and Epidemiology Research Office (HE2RO), University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 12 Department of Psychology, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
  • 13 Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America
  • 14 School of Psychology, Queen's University Belfast, Belfast, United Kingdom
  • 15 School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
  • 16 Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
  • 17 School of Psychological Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, Kelburn Campus, Wellington, New Zealand
  • 18 School of Psychology, University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus, Brisbane, Australia
  • 19 Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, United States of America
  • 20 Department of Educational Psychology, East China Normal University, Shanghai, Mainland China
  • 21 I/O Psychology and Educational Psychology, Udayana University, Bali, Indonesia
  • 22 Department of Psychology, Worcester State University, Worcester, Massachusetts, United States of America
  • 23 Kibale Forest Schools Program, Kabarole, Uganda
  • 24 People and Change (PnC) Consulting, Medan, Indonesia
  • 25 Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
  • 26 Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America
  • 27 Department of Early Childhood Education, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
  • 28 Department of Psychology, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
  • 29 Department of Cognitive and Psychological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, United States of America
  • 30 Department of Philosophy, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, United States of America
  • 31 Psychology Department, Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Palestinian, United States of America
  • 32 Department of Early Childhood Education, University of Patras, Patras, Greece
  • 33 Department of Psychology, Union College, Schenectady, New York, United States of America
  • 34 Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts, University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, United States of America
  • 35 Boston University School of Public Health, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
  • 36 Department of Psychology, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, Washington, United States of America
  • 37 Department of Philosophy and History of Science, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece
  • 38 Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America
  • 39 School of Psychology, University College Dublin, Ireland
  • 40 Centre for Research in Child Development, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
PLoS One, 2025;20(9):e0330727.
PMID: 40911539 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0330727

Abstract

The Developing Belief Network is a global research collaborative studying religious development in diverse social-cultural settings, with a focus on the intersection of cognitive mechanisms and cultural beliefs and practices in early and middle childhood. The current manuscript describes the study protocol for the network's second wave of data collection, which aims to further explore the development and diversity of religious cognition and behavior using a multi-time point approach. This protocol is designed to investigate three key research questions-how children represent and reason about religious and supernatural agents, how children represent and reason about religion as an aspect of social identity, and how religious and supernatural beliefs are transmitted within and between generations-via a set of eight tasks for children between the ages of 5 and 13 years and a survey completed by their parents/caregivers. This study is being conducted in 41 distinct cultural-religious settings, spanning 16 countries and 12 written languages. In this manuscript, we provide detailed descriptions of all elements of this study protocol, and give a brief overview of the ways in which this protocol has been adapted for use in diverse religious communities. As one example of how this protocol has been implemented outside of the United States, we present Arabic- and English-language study materials for children being raised in one of the following religious traditions in Lebanon: the Druze faith, Maronite Christianity, Orthodox Christianity, Shia Islam, or Sunni Islam. We end with reflections on the challenges of developing and implementing large-scale, multi-site, multi-time point studies of child development; our approach to navigating these challenges; and our suggestions for how future researchers might learn from our experiences and build on the work presented here.

* Title and MeSH Headings from MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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