Does God Comfort You When You Are Sad? Religious Diversity in Children’s Attribution of Positive and Negative Traits to God

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The aim of the article is to understand “the ways in which emotionality enters into children’s concept of God” (lines 79-80). The study stems from the latest empirical research on children’s concepts as well as their feelings towards God. According to the authors, while previous studies had only focused on either one, this article presents a combined approach, including both children’s attitudes and notions toward God.

Moreover, the study attempts to gauge how different religious backgrounds (Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Non-Affiliated) may affect emotional valence in concepts related to God in its sample (children aged 3.5 to 7 years old). The statistics presented are accurate and comprehensive. By using Univariate ANOVA with Tukey post-hoc test the researchers show a good degree of scrutiny in measuring the impact of each variable considered.

Some remarks may be in order in some areas of the study. Firstly, to translate feelings into words as well as ‘wording them’ for the researchers, children should benefit from a psychic capacity and it requires a specific methodology for researchers. Therefore, methods need to be justified in a sufficiently comprehensive way. Hence, the paragraph description of Procedure should be clearer and more detailed. In particular, it would be interesting to know how the children’s feelings are assessed through verbal communication. Perhaps the author could present an example of a conversation with the assessed children. For example, having used semi-clinical interviews (Piaget) would have given the reader a clearer understanding of the methodology. Secondly, the authors should justify why they chose to adopt the “explicit method” exclusively instead of integrating it with “implicit methods”, and why they prefer direct observation and questionnaire interviews instead of indirect methods of interpretation.

Moreover, the authors did not fully consider previous studies on the subject, for example, those of Anna Maria Rizzuto, and many other contributors on the representation of God, as well as the use of religious TAT. In other words, the authors completely ignore the literature published before 2000. This omission should at least be acknowledged and openly expressed under “Limitations”.  The authors express one significant limitation which affects not only this research but also the availability of similar studies on this subject; the most relevant being, “how emotionally-tinged, relational interactions with an abstract being, such as God, is related to children’s general understanding of emotions and emotions in social interactions”. This is a significant issue in literature within the discussion on the possibility of applying the theory of attachment to a relationship with God the “untouchable”. It would be advisable for the authors to include some awareness of the problem.

Some remarks on the presentation of the article are also due. From line 402 to line 418 paragraph on religious affiliation includes references from only one author and quoted all of seven times. In addition, some of the texts quoted in the article have no correspondence in the final “References”, (Doebel, 2020; Thibodeau-Nielsen et 450 al. 2021; Gilpin et al. 2015 - to mention but a few).

To summarise, with the few additions mentioned above, the article could be published as it draws some interesting conclusions that will contribute to the ongoing discussion on the subject.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The project is flawed by an ambiguous and misleading characterization of the topic.   The article consequently suggests that the author(s) is confused about the scholarly nature of the investigation.  Fortunately, I think that this is still a strong scholarly paper—but needs to sharpen its narrative frame before publication.  Only a few paragraphs need rewriting and otherwise this is a fine article that adds to previous studies assessing children’s views of god.

The title suggests that the paper explores emotional valence as a causal factor affecting children’s views of god.  The abstract also states that the goal is to examine the effect that emotions have on children’s conceptions of god.  So does line 115.  But in fact this paper does not explore children’s emotional states, but rather it explores how children think about god’s emotional states.  A huge distinction and this paper suffers from not being clear and consistent about this.

The author(s) had greater clarity in line 251-256.  This article is really a small contribution to the study of children’s cognitive development (esp. theory of mind as implied in l. 256).  Actually, lines 238-241 did suggest that a better understanding of children’s emotional repertoire vis a vis family members might play a causal role in perception/cognition/attribution of other’s (god’s) emotional traits.

A good article that builds on previous scholarship of children’s gradual development of god concepts (by adding some concepts related to god’s emotions).  Well structured.  Well written.  But a final draft must change the title, abstract, and key sentences to communicate that the goal is to assess children’s concepts of god’s emotions  rather than about how children’s emotions influence these concepts.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf