Approaching an understanding of omniscience from the preschool years to early adulthood.

ABSTRACT: Individuals in many cultures believe in omniscient (all-knowing) beings, but everyday representations of omniscience have rarely been studied. To understand the nature of such representations requires knowing how they develop. Two studies examined the breadth of knowledge (i.e., types of knowledge) and depth of knowledge (i.e., amount of knowledge within domains) that preschoolers, elementary-school children, and adults (N = 180) attributed to an all-knowing being. Preschoolers often reported that an omniscient mind would lack many types of knowledge, and they completely failed to understand the depth of omniscient knowledge. With increasing age, children approached an understanding of omniscience-attributing broader and deeper knowledge to an omniscient agent-but only adults firmly unders

SUBMITTER: Lane JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4172513 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature