Religious children more likely to think Harry Potter is real: research

22 July 2014 - 17:11 By Times LIVE
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Religious children are more likely to judge the protagonist in a fantastical story to be real than their secular counterparts according to a study.

The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Cognitive Science, took a look at five-to-six-year-olds from religious and secular backgrounds.

What they found was that the kids who went to church or were enrolled in a parochial school, or both, judged the protagonist in religious stories to be real.

The kids from a more secular background unsurprisingly didn't.

The interesting thing is - when given stories in fantastical settings, settings that weren't religious, the religious children were also more likely to say those protagonists were real too.

Which is to say that they are more likely to think Harry Potter is real.

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