BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 2

Train up a child in the way he should go: Parents’ biblical literalism as determining factor

of children’s attitudes towards science

Thuy-vy T. Nguyen1 and Jonathon McPhetres1

1University of Rochester

This manuscript is currently under review

Please note that changes will likely occur throughout the editorial process, so please make sure to

cite the appropriate version.

Authors’ notes

Thuy-vy T. Nguyen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Rochester in

Rochester, NY, USA.

Jonathon McPhetres is a PhD candidate at the University of Rochester in Rochester, NY,

USA.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Thuy-vy T. Nguyen, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14610. Contact: [email protected]

Nguyen, T. T., & McPhetres, J. (2018). Train up a child in the way he should go: Parents’ biblical literalism as determining factor of children’s attitudes towards science. Unpublished manuscript. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 3

Abstract

A literal interpretation of the teachings and events of the Bible is endorsed by 40% of Christian adults in the United States. In the present research, we investigated how biblical literalism relates to the ways parents communicate with their children about religion and science in religious families, and its implications for children’s attitudes toward science. We conducted two studies using an exploratory-confirmatory paradigm. In Study 1, we explored the correlations between parents’ literal belief and their support for children’s religious autonomy and attitudes toward science (N = 119). Then, we conducted a preregistered replication to confirm Study 1 results, collecting data from adult “child” subjects (N = 652) and their parents (N = 220). Findings from both studies showed that parents who endorsed biblical literalism provided less support for their children’s religious autonomy. For those with parents who endorse biblical literalism, parents’ support for children’s religious autonomy contributed to children’s religious faith and greater endorsement of biblical literalism, which in turn correlated negatively with children’s interest in science and embracing science as useful. These results add to literature suggesting that socialization involving a specific kind of religious belief—a literal interpretation of the Bible— may negatively impact interest in science.

Keywords: religion, parenting, science attitudes, biblical literalism, autonomy. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 4

Train up a child in the way he should go: Parents’ biblical literalism as determining factor

of children’s attitudes towards science

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not

depart from it.” -Proverbs 22:6, KJV.

A growing research literature suggests that religious and scientific teachings conflict in various ways and that those higher in religiosity on average have less positive views of science

(for reviews, see McPhetres & Nguyen, 2017; Rutjens, Sutton, van Herrevald, 2018). This emerging literature inspires the questions addressed in the present research: do parents’ religious beliefs play a role in shaping their children’s view toward science?

This question is important because children’s attitudes and interest in science are determined very early on in adolescence, around the age of fourteen (Archer, Dewitt, Osborne,

Dillon, Willis, & Wong, 2010), and family and parents’ attitude toward science are key factors in promoting children’s identification with and achievements in science (Aschbacher, Li, & Roth,

2010; Ferry, Fouad, & Smith, 2000; Dabney, Chakraverty, & Tai, 2013; Gilmartin, Li, &

Aschbacher, 2006; Stake, 2006). Some research (Archer, Dewitt, Osborne, Dillon, Willis, &

Wong, 2012) has shown that parents’ attitude toward science can shape family culture around science that significantly impacts children’s later engagement. This led us to asking the question of whether this culture around science could be viable in religious homes considering that certain religious beliefs render that some scientific topics are ignored or necessarily distorted (Franzen

& Griebel, 2013). We will discuss further evidence relevant to this research question in the next two sections.

Parents’ roles in promoting science interest BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 5

First, it is important to acknowledge the important role of parents in promoting their children’s interest in science. Parental involvement can take shape in many ways. For example, parents can influence their children’s self-concepts and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997; Jacobs,

1991) and parents’ beliefs about their children’s abilities can affect the child’s interest and performance directly (Lazarides & Watt, 2015; Neuenschwander, Vida, Garrett, & Eccles, 2007).

Parents can also be agents for supporting and guiding their children’s interest in science.

This support can come in the form of monetary support. A cross-national studies showed that parents’ socioeconomic statuses are directly linked to students’ math and science achievement

(Baker, Goesling, & LeTendre, 2002), and this effect was consistent in both developed and under-developed nations.

Parental support can also come in the form of explicit interactions; for example, children of parents who discuss the value of science perform better in science courses (Harackiewicz,

Rozek, Hulleman & Hyde, 2012; Ma, 2001). Additionally, even if parents cannot provide monetary support or do not have the science knowledge themselves, parents can communicate the usefulness of science. Indeed, Eccles’s (2009) expectancy-value theory suggests that to the extent one expects to do well and sees value in an activity, they are more likely to pursue that task. Thus, parents might simply provide verbal support and encouragement.

In addition to explicit support and communication, parental beliefs and household values are also important influences on children’s interests (Eccles, Adler, & Kaczala, 1982; Frenzel,

Goetz, Pekrun & Watts, 2010; Wigfield & Eccles, 1992). For example, children of scientists are more likely to pursue science careers (Erola, Jalonen & Leti, 2016; Jodl, Michael, Malanchuk,

Eccles, & Sameroff, 2001) and a family’s collective identity around science and education also shapes children’s later engagement with science (Archer et al., 2012). Further, parents can BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 6 expose or withhold exposure to science occupations and those experiences influence interests later in life (Lent, Brown & Hackett, 2000; Ferry, Fouad, & Smith, 2000). However, we argue here that parental value displays around science need not be so specific or explicit.

The link between parents’ religious beliefs on children’s science attitudes. It is surprising that parental religious belief have not been included more often in discussions around public attitudes toward science (Ellison & Musick, 1995). Yet, there are several reasons why the role of parents’ religious beliefs (beyond parents’ education, income, and occupation) on children’s science attitudes ought to be considered. First, a large literature suggests that religious people are less likely to pursue scientific careers (Ecklund & Scheitle, 2007; Scheitle & Ecklund,

2017), are less likely to value a scientific education (Ganzach, Ellis & Gotlibovsky, 2013), and have more negative attitudes towards science and possess less scientific knowledge (McPhetres

& Zuckerman, 2018). So, if religious parents have unfavorable attitudes toward science, children of religious parents might come to endorse similar attitudes.

Second, the negative influence that religious parents have on children’s attainment in secular education have been evidenced particularly in fundamental Christian traditions (Darnell

& Sherkat, 1997), due to the more salient science-religion conflict for beliefs which endorse the

Bible as literal and inerrant truth (Ellison & Musick, 1995; McPhetres & Nguyen, 2018). For example, religious teachings about the age of the earth and the origin of human beings contradict evolutionary theory (Evans, 2011). One may also have moral conflicts about scientists conducting stem-cell research (Pew Research Center, 2015), using nanotechnology (Scheufele,

Corley, Shih, Dalyrimple & Ho, 2009), or genetically modifying plants and animals (Rutjens,

Heine, Sutton & van Herrevald, 2018). Further, religious people in general, regardless of BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 7 affiliations, are likely to associate scientists with immorality (Rutjens & Heine, 2016), suggesting that they are likely to see engagement in science as corruptive to religious values.

Through understanding how religious parents think about science, it is worth investigating how their beliefs also relate to their children’s science attitudes. Much research has supported that religious parents are highly effective at transmitting religious beliefs to their children (Erickson, 1992; Gibson, Francis, & Pearson, 1990; Ozorak, 1989; Parker & Gaier,

1980; Hoge & Keeter, 1976; Sherkat, 1991). So, if religious parents have less favorable attitudes toward science, might children growing up in a religious household be less interested in science because of their parents’ beliefs? This is the question we aimed to investigate in the present study.

Religious parents can hinder children’s science engagement actively or passively. The active influence may take the form of parents explicitly communicating that science and religion are in conflict or encouraging their children to pursue something other than science.

Alternatively, religious parents may influence children’s attitudes toward science passively through either not discussing science with their children at all or setting examples or practicing values that place less importance on science identification. For example, because religious parents are less likely to engage in science themselves (Ecklund, 2010; Ecklund & Scheitle,

2007), parents may not model the value of science for their children and children are not exposed to activities that foster their interest in science. So, while some religious parents may not actively communicate a negative view of science, they may refrain from communicating its importance.

Further passive influence may also come from ambient discussion of religious values from which the child then surmises that science is in conflict with their religious beliefs, or at least comes to be more familiar with religion compared to science. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 8

The Role of Parenting Techniques. It should not be overgeneralized that all religious parents would negatively affect their children’s engagement with science. Some parents might be open to their children choosing their own opinions and beliefs. Parental support of children’s religious choice can involve taking the time to understand the children’s perspectives rather than imposing one’s own worldview on them. Parents can communicate rules and behavioral restrictions in ways that help children understand the reasons behind those rules, and at the same time respect that children can make the choice on their own. These techniques to support children’s choice have been used in education and coaching (Amorose & Anderson-Butcher,

2007; Black & Deci, 2000; Hagger, Chatzisarantis, Barkoukis, Wang, & Baranowski, 2005;

Jang, Reeve, & Deci, 2010), but have not been studied in the context of religious parenting.

Nonetheless, religious parents can use them as tool to communicate effectively with children about topics that might potentially conflict with parents’ religious beliefs, like discussions about morality, evolution, or science in general. So, we also saw the importance of considering the role of parenting techniques and investigating how these techniques could be used by religious parents to allow children the freedom to explore alternative perspectives.

The present research

In undertaking the present research, we outlined three specific questions regarding the relation between religious parenting and children’s attitudes toward science. The first research question concerns how literalist parents discuss religion and science with their children. In the second question, we asked whether the children of literalist parents have less positive attitudes towards science. Third, we investigated whether parents’ support of children’s religious autonomy will contribute positively to children’s science attitudes. We detail each of these three questions in the following sections. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 9

Question 1: Do literalist parents support their children’s autonomy for opinions and perspectives, especially around topics related to religion and science? To investigate this question, our focus was whether literal parents allow children to endorse their own views when discussing a variety of different topics, from religion, to morality, to scientific discoveries, etc.

Conceptually, literalism is antithetical to autonomy support. That is, biblical literalism is necessarily a specific and narrow interpretation of the Christian Bible—a view which does not allow for individual interpretation and broad application of scriptures (see Franzen & Griebel,

2013). Though very little research has correlated religious beliefs with autonomy supportive or controlling parenting, one study showed that parents’ literalism correlates with controlling parenting techniques (Duriez, Soenens, Neyrinck, & Vansteenkiste, 2009). This suggests that some level of control and pressure from the parents is needed to ensure that parents’ ways of thinking about the world will be passed down to the children.

We were specifically interested in how literalism relates to parenting techniques when it comes to discussion around science and scientific discoveries for religious parents. That is, literalist parents may monitor what sort of scientific information the children encounter, or they may communicate the conflicts between religion and science rather than encouraging their children to make their own assessment. Ensuring that children receive an education that is compatible with the parents’ views on religion may be one motivation for sending their children to religious schools or for homeschooling their children. This strategy provides nearly complete control over the information the children receive about science. This control over children’s education is more prevalent in some religious orientations, particularly those who endorse the belief that words from the Bible are the literal truth (Darnell & Sherkat, 1997). Therefore, to the extent that biblical literal parents provide less autonomy for the children to endorse their own BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 10 religious beliefs, they will also restrict children’s autonomy for acquiring scientific information.

As such, parents’ biblical literalism will not only correlate negatively with parents’ autonomy support in religion domain but also in science domain as well.

Question 2: Do parents’ literal beliefs relate negatively to children’s science attitudes? Previous research has shown that certain religious affiliations are less representative in science domains (Ecklund & Scheitle, 2007; Scheitle & Ecklund, 2017) and more recent data

(McPhetres & Zuckerman, 2018) suggested that parents’ religious practices have long-term effects on children’s later interest in science. However, none of these studies focused on the contents of parental beliefs. Yet, belief content is important because it relates to views around certain scientific facts like evolution and human origins. Particularly among Christians, there are various ways to interpret the Bible, which can be categorized into two perspectives, one that interprets the Bible as the literal words of God and the other that endorses the Bible symbolically. One study found that parents’ endorsement of biblical literalism is the strongest predictor of children’s attitudes toward science, above and beyond parents’ religious affiliations

(Ellison & Musick, 1995). As such, parents’ literal beliefs might relate negatively to children’s science outcomes.

Question 3: Does religious parents’ greater support for children’s religious autonomy relate to positive science attitudes? The most important question we wanted to investigate in this paper was whether supporting children’s religious autonomy also includes allowing them to endorse alternative views different from parents. So, on one hand, we argued above that parents’ literal beliefs might hinder their children’s pursuits for science and scientific knowledge. On the other hand, we predicted that when religious parents support their children’s religious autonomy, this support would relate positively to children’s science attitudes. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 11

In summary, the present research aimed to provide a descriptive picture of how parents’ religious belief might relate to the way they interact with children around topics related to religion and science. We also predicted that parents’ endorsement of literal belief would likely yield negative association with children’s positive attitudes toward science while parents’ support for children’s religious autonomy would yield positive association with children’s science outcomes.

Statement of Transparency

Using an exploratory-confirmatory paradigm, we invested the aforementioned questions in two studies. The first study was exploratory. We collected data from adults on Amazon’s

Mechanical Turk who grew up with religious parents (i.e., both mother and father). Then, in an attempt to replicate the findings found in Study 1, we conducted Study 2 with an independent sample of college undergraduate students and community participants recruited via Research

Match1. For Study 2, we set the same recruitment criteria (i.e., adult children with religious parents), and also asked subjects to provide their parents’ email addresses so we could reach out to collect data from parents as well. Study 2’s hypotheses, procedures, and analyses were preregistered on Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/53ypt/? view_only=b1d0fce396e142de9f026be9fe170348).

Study 1 Method

Subjects

1 Recruitment for the study included participants from Research Match, a national health volunteer registry that was created by several academic institutions and supported by the U.S. National Institutes of Health as part of the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) program. Research Match has a large population of volunteers who have consented to be contacted by researchers about health studies for which they maybe eligible. Review and approval for this study and all procedures were obtained from the University of Rochester’s Research Subjects Review Board. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 12

Complete demographics are described in Table 1. One-hundred and nineteen M-Turk workers participated in this study. In a qualifying survey, participants were deemed eligible if they indicated that their parents were religious when they were growing up. Only those who did not pick the answer “not at all” were then invited to participate in the study. Participants were paid .25 US dollar to complete a 5 to 10 minute survey.

Measures

Parents’ religious beliefs. To assess parents’ religious and epistemological beliefs, we asked the subjects whether their parents were religious, whether they “believed that the Bible should be interpreted literally,” and whether they “believed that humans evolved from earlier species”. The subjects rated the degree to which each of the two statements was true about their parents on a 7-point scale (1 = not at all; 7 = very true).

Parents’ autonomy support. Subjects were presented with different prompts about different topics about which they and their parents have engaged in conversations when they were growing up. Even though the aim of our research was only to focus on parent-child discussions about “religious teachings and practices” (α = .75) and “science or scientific discoveries” (α = .78), we included other topics to mask the purpose of our study. These topics included “what was morally right or wrong” (α = .76), “politics or current social events” (α

= .63), “career choices or life decisions” (α = .73), “controversial scientific topics like human evolution or the Big Bang” (α = .72), and “controversial moral issues like abortion or contraceptives” (α = .74).

For each topic, subjects were asked to rate their agreement on four statements on a 7- point scale (1=do not agree at all; 2=strongly agree). One statement assessed the extent to which their parents allowed the subjects the autonomy to have personal opinions and beliefs around the BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 13 issue. Another statement pertained to whether the parents provided their own reasons behind their opinions and beliefs around the issue. One statement measured the extent to which the parents acknowledged their children’s thoughts and feelings, even those that contradicted with parents’ beliefs. Finally, one reverse coded item assessed the extent to which parents made their children feel guilty for holding a different point of view. Four items were averaged to make up the scores for parents’ autonomy support around each topic.

Child’s religious beliefs. To measure the subject’s religious beliefs, we used the

Shortened Post-Critical Belief Scale (Duriez, Soenens, & Hutsebaut, 2005). This 18-item scale assessed religiosity on two dimensions. The first dimension, inclusion versus exclusion of transcendence, pertains to the degree to which an individual believes in supernatural reality, and thus is the measure of whether the person is religious or not. The second dimension, literal versus symbolic, pertains to how an individual interpret religious contents. This dimension is the measure of whether the person either endorses or rejects religious contents on the basis of literal interpretations of such contents, or he or she endorses or rejects religious contents based on their symbolic meanings.

Together, these two dimensions make up four different religious attitudes: literal inclusion (α = .86; e.g., “I think that Bible stories should be taken literally, as they are written”), symbolic inclusion (α = .88; e.g., “The Bible holds a deeper truth which can only be revealed by personal reflection”), literal exclusion (α = .78; e.g., “Science has made a religious understanding of life superfluous”), and symbolic exclusion (α = .61; e.g., “God grows together with the history of humanity and therefore is changeable”). Subjects indicated the extent to which they agreed to each statement on a 7-point scale (1=completely disagree; 7=completely agree).

Additionally, we also included 6 items that assessed subjects’ religious identity (e.g., “If BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 14 someone wanted to understand who I am as a person, my religion or faith would be very important in that.”).

Child’s attitudes toward science. To assess subjects’ interest in science, we adapted 9 items from the Science Curiosity Scale, which was originally designed to measure children’s interest in science (Harty & Beall, 1984). Items were chosen to apply to adult sample, such as

“Science magazines and stories are interesting” or “I like to search for answer to questions about space travel” (α = .87). To measure how much subjects value the application of science in their life, we included 3 items, including “I can apply scientific discoveries to real life”, “I think new scientific discoveries are useful to know”, and “I can see how what I learn from science applies to life” (α = .82). Finally, to measure subjects’ trust in science, we used the Belief in Science

Scale by Farias, Newheiser, Kahane, and Toledo (2013). Example items from this scale are

“Science provides us with a better understanding of the universe than does religion” and “The scientific method is the only reliable path to knowledge” (α = .94). Subjects were asked to indicate their agreement to statements from the above measures on 7-point scales.

Study 1 Results

Sample Descriptive Statistics

On 7-point scales, participants on Mechanical Turks reported mean of 4.17 (SD = 1.92) on parents’ biblical literalism and mean of 4.66 (SD = 1.64) on parents’ general religiosity. The mean for parents’ belief in evolution was 3.46 (SD = 2.00). Three variables on parents’ beliefs correlated in expected direction and all correlations were significant at p < .001. Parents’ general religiosity correlated positively with parents’ biblical literalism (r = .55) and negatively with parents’ belief in evolution (r = -.37). Parents’ biblical literalism also correlated negatively with parents’ belief in evolution (r = -.51). This indicated that our sample is made up of those who BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 15 grew up with religious parents with a decent range of beliefs in both literalism and evolutionism.

As indicated in Table 2, high reports of parents’ endorsement of literal belief correlated positively with children’s reports of literal beliefs and general religiosity. There was no significant zero-order correlation between parents’ endorsement of literal belief and children’s interest in science, perceived value of science, or belief of science. All belief inclusion subscales and general levels of religiosity reported from adult children correlated negatively with their interest in science, perceived value of science, and beliefs in science.

Question 1: Do literalist parents support their children’s autonomy for opinions and perspectives, especially around topics related to religion and science?

For this question, we asked adult children to report the extent to which their parents supported their choice in opinions and perspectives on a variety of topics. As shown in Table 2, negative correlations between parents’ literalism and autonomy support showed up for all seven topics that participants were asked about. That is, literal parents and religious parents provided their children with less autonomy when discussing religion, science, morality, abortion, evolution and the Big Bang, politics, and their future career.

Question 2: Do parents’ literal beliefs relate negatively to children’s science attitudes?

There were no significant zero-order correlations between parents’ literal belief and children’s interest in science, perceived value of science, or belief in science (see Table 2).

Question 3: Does parents’ greater support for children’s religious autonomy relate to positive science attitudes?

We discussed in the introduction that, while literalist beliefs might leave little room for children’s choice of beliefs, to the extent that parents support children’s religious autonomy, the children might have more positive attitudes toward science. As shown in Table 2, our prediction BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 16 was not supported by the zero-order correlations between parents’ support for children’s religious autonomy and children’s attitudes toward science.

We performed additional exploratory analyses to see whether parents’ support for religious autonomy could interact with parents’ beliefs in predicting children’s science attitudes.

We first standardized the scores in parents’ support of children’s religious autonomy and parents’ literal belief and calculated the product of those two variables using the standardized scores. Then, in three regression models with interest in science, perceived value of science, and belief in science as outcome variables, we entered parents’ support for religious autonomy and parents’ literal belief at step 1 and their interaction at step 2. We observed significant interaction of parents’ support for religious autonomy and parents’ literal belief in predicting interest in science and perceived value of science, but not for belief in science (see table 3).

Interest in science. Examination of simple slopes showed that parental support for children’s autonomy around religious belief correlated positively and significantly with children’s interest in science for those with parents who were low in literal belief (β = .46, t =

3.47, CI 95% = [.20, .72]). On the other hand, this link was not significant for those with parents who were high in literal belief (β = -.10, t = -.80, CI 95% = [-.35, .15]).

Perceived value of science. Similarly, parental support for children’s autonomy around religious belief correlated positively and significantly with children’s perceived value of science for those who reported low parents’ literal belief (β = .28, t = 2.09, CI 95% = [.02, .55]), but this link was not significant for those who reported high parents’ literal belief (β = -.21 t = -1.64, CI

95% = [-.47, .04]).

So, these results suggested that parents’ support for religious autonomy related positively to children’s attitudes toward science only for those with parents who did not hold strong literal BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 17 belief.

The findings that parents’ autonomy support around children’s religious belief did not correlated with children’s science interest and perceived value for literalist parents was unexpected. We considered children’s belief as the explanation of these findings. If parents endorse stronger literal belief, they might transmit their values and beliefs to their children, leading the children to also endorse literal belief. A previous study with Italian family triads

(father, mother, and adolescent child) showed that parents’ support for children’s autonomy promotes greater children’s acceptance of parents’ moral values (Barni, Ranieri, Scabini, &

Rosnati, 2011). As such, perhaps through supporting children’s autonomy around religious belief, literalist parents transmit their values to their children, and the child’s literalist belief in turn relates negatively with their positive attitudes toward science.

A test of the interaction between parents’ literal belief and parents’ support for children’s religious autonomy predicting children’s literal belief suggested that support for children’s autonomy correlated positively with children’s endorsement of literal belief only for those with literal parents. For those who reported low ratings on parent’s belief in the Bible as the literal words of God, parents’ support for religious autonomy was not associated with children’s literal belief. This supported the notion that autonomy support facilitates transmission of values. So, to examine the mediating role of children’s literal belief, we conducted a moderated mediation analysis using PROCESS Model 7 (Hayes, 2018). In this model, we looked at the interaction of parents’ strength of literal belief with parents’ autonomy support around religion predicting children’s literal belief, which in turns predicts children’s science interest, perceived values of science, and belief in science. This allows us to examine whether parental autonomy support around religion differentially influenced a child’s interest and value in science depending on BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 18 whether or not their parents held literal beliefs. Regression coefficients are presented in Tables 4-

6 and the model paths are depicted in in the top half of Figure 1.

As can be seen in Figure 1, moderated mediation analyses showed that parents’ literal beliefs predicted child literal beliefs (W path), and parents’ autonomy support around religion was also positively associated with child literal belief (a path). Parents’ literal belief significantly moderated the association between parents’ autonomy support around religion and children’s literal belief (a x W path), such that autonomy support promotes greater literal belief for children with literalist parents. In turn, children’s literal belief significantly correlated negatively with children’s interest in science, perceived value of science, and belief in science (b path). The conditional indirect effects from parents’ autonomy support around religion to children’s interest in science and perceived value of science through children’s endorsement of literal belief were significant only when parents’ literal belief was at the mean or above (see Tables 4-6). In other words, literalist parents’ autonomy support around religion indirectly lead to children’s less interest in science, lower perceived value of science, and less belief in science through promoting children’s literal belief. However, autonomy support around religion was just unrelated to science attitudes at lower levels of literalism.

Discussion

In Study 1, we sought to understand the link between parents’ religious belief and interactions with their children around religious beliefs with the children’s attitudes toward science. As the first exploratory attempt, we asked several questions about the interactions between parents’ belief and the ways they communicate with their children about religion. We found that parents who endorsed stronger literal belief were less supportive of children’s choice around their religious belief as well as any other types of discussions, including discussions BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 19 about science or science discoveries, morality, abortion, evolution, politics, or children’s future career. This suggested that parents with strong literal belief were less autonomy supportive in general.

Even when literalist parents are perceived as autonomy supportive around children’s religious belief, this only serves the function of strengthening children’s literal belief, which in turn leads children to having less interest in science and valuing science less. This finding was surprising to us. We expected that when children’s autonomy around their own religious belief is supported by parents, children would have more positive attitudes toward science. Yet, we found that the positive link between autonomy support for religious belief and children’s positive science attitudes only emerged when parents do not hold strong literal belief. For those with parents who held strong literal belief, the children endorsed similar belief as their parents’, which in turn correlated negatively with their engagement with science. Given the important role of parents in children’s science education (Archer et al., 2010; Archer et al., 2012; Aschbacher, Li,

& Roth, 2010; Ferry, Fouad, & Smith, 2000; Dabney, Chakraverty, & Tai, 2013; Gilmartin, Li,

& Aschbacher, 2006; Stake, 2006), this finding suggested that transmission of literal belief might have non-optimal effect on children’s engagement with science.

The significance of those implications warrants a well-powered replication. So, we conducted a second study and made two improvements to Study 1’s design. First, we collected a larger sample of children of religious parents, using the same surveys as those in Study 1.

Second, we asked adult children to provide contacts of their parents, and reached out to parents to collect data on parents’ religious beliefs and parenting techniques from parents’ perspectives.

Third, we preregistered our hypotheses, design, and analyses on Open Science Framework (link).

The goal of Study 2 was to replicate the results of Study 1 through looking at 1) how children’s BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 20 ratings of parents’ beliefs and parenting correlated with children’s ratings of their own science attitudes, and 2) how parents’ ratings of parents’ own beliefs and parenting related to children’s ratings of children’s science attitudes.

Study 2

Subjects

Complete demographics are described in Table 1. Child subjects were recruited from a community sample via Research Match (n = 404) and college student pool at a private university

(n = 256). Subjects were eligible to subjects if they grew up with both parents identifying as

Christians. The final child sample was 653 subjects after removing duplicate responses.

Child subjects were asked to provide email addresses of at least one of their parents. Of

1055 emails that were sent out to parents, 301 parents of 220 child subjects responded to our invitations; 3 duplicate responses were removed. We opted to not exclude parents who said they are not Christians if child subjects reported that they are. Because we did not get many child subjects with both parents responding, we combined both parents’ scores for those whose both parents responded to the survey. College students completed survey for extra course credits.

Subjects from community sample and all “parent” subjects are entered into a lottery drawing for one out of ten $25 Amazon gift cards.

Measures

Child subjects’ ratings. Similar measures were used to measure child’s reports of parents’ endorsement of literal belief, parents’ autonomy support around different topics, child’s religious belief (i.e., Post-critical belief scale), and child’s science attitudes.

Parents’ literal belief. We asked the participants the extent to which their parents believed the Bible should be interpreted literally. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 21

Parents’ autonomy support. We focused on parents’ practices of autonomy support when talking to their children about religion (α = .76), science (α = .85), and career choice (α = .79).

Children’s religious belief. In Study 2, we measured several dimensions of children’s religious belief, including their general religiosity, their belief content on the literal to symbolic spectrum, and also their levels of religious internalization.

Again, we included a 6-item general religiosity scale (Cohen, Shariff & Hill, 2008; α

= .96) and the Post-critical belief scale like those in Study 1. The post-critical belief scale was averaged into subscales representing literal inclusion (α = .76) and exclusion (α = .86), and symbolic inclusion (α = .51) and exclusion (α = .65).

To further investigate child’s religious belief, we measured child subjects’ internalization of Christian beliefs and practices using the Christian Religious Internalization Scale (Ryan,

Rigby, & King, 1993). This scale includes items that assess the extent to which participants endorse their Christian beliefs and practices for self-determined reasons (i.e., religious identification; “When I turn to God, I most often do it because I enjoy spending time with Him”) or out of fear of punishment and disapproval (i.e., religious introjection; “I think praying by myself is important because if I don’t, God will disapprove of me”). These items were rated on

7-point scale and were calculated into two subscales measuring identification (α = .95) and introjection (α = .83).

Children’s science attitude. For child’s science attitudes, we only included the scale for interest in science (α = .83) and perceived value of science (α = .85). We excluded the measure for belief in science, because some items in this scale pitched religion against science (i.e.,

“Science provides us with a better understanding of the universe than does religion) which we felt weighted the results in our favor. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 22

Parents’ ratings.

Parents’ religious belief. To measure parents’ religious beliefs, we included the literal inclusion and symbolic inclusion subscales from the Post-critical belief scale.

Parents’ autonomy support. Parents were asked to think about time when they and their children engaged in conversations about religious teachings and practices. We adapted items from a previously validated Perceptions of Parents scale (Grolnick, Deci, & Ryan, 1997). We included items that pertain to parents’ engaging in a variety of techniques, from taking the children’s perspectives (e.g., “when my child and I engaged in conversations about religious teachings or practices, I encourage my child to be open with me about what he/she thinks”), supporting their belief choices (e.g., “I accept my child’s perspectives even when they are different than mine”), to imposing beliefs on them (e.g., “I educate my child what I believe is the best choice for him/her”), and making sure they believe in the same things as parents do (e.g., “I make sure my child see things the same way I do”). Exploratory factor analyses showed that items that assess tendency of parents to impose beliefs on their children or make sure the children believe in the same thing as parents do loaded onto one factor. We referred to these as controlling techniques. On the other hand, items about perspective taking and choice support loaded onto a different factor, and we referred to these as autonomy supportive techniques. Two factors correlated negatively with one another at -.12. Following our preregistered plan, we reversed the items for controlling techniques and combined them with the items for autonomy supportive techniques to make up the scores for parents’ support for religious autonomy (α

= .77). EFA’s item loadings are provided in Appendix A.

Pre-registered hypotheses

In Study 2, we focused on the interaction between parents’ endorsement of literal belief BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 23 and parents’ autonomy support around religion. The hypotheses and analysis plans were pre- registered on OSF (https://osf.io/53ypt/?view_only=b1d0fce396e142de9f026be9fe170348).

Results

Variable correlations

The correlation table (see bottom half of Table 2) showed the same patterns as observed in Study 1. Parents’ endorsement of literal belief correlated positively with children’s religious identification and introjection, which suggests that children of literal parents are identified more strongly with their religious values and practices but at the same time also felt greater guilt and pressures from not fulfilling them. Parents’ autonomy support around children’s religious belief correlated positively with children’s religious identification and negatively with children’s religious introjection. In other words, when religious parents are more autonomy supportive, their children feel a stronger sense of volition in adopting religious practices and values and are less pressured by internal guilt or self-approval to fulfill religious standards. Correlations between parent and child responses are presented in the supplementary materials.

Main analyses

As in Study 1, we again used linear regression to examine whether parent’s literalism moderated the relations between autonomy support and children’s science interest, and value of science. We also conducted regression analyses to investigate the interaction between parents’ literal belief and support for children’s religious autonomy on children’s religious belief, including children’s general religiosity, literal belief, religious identification, and religious introjection. Finally, we again investigated the moderated mediation model that depicted children’s literal belief as the mediator of the weaken association between parents’ support for religious autonomy and children’s science attitudes for those with literal parents. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 24

All variables were standardized and interaction term was calculated using the standardized scores. All coefficients are presented in Table 7; below we discuss each outcome in turn.

Children’s interest in science. There was no significant interaction of parents’ endorsement of literal belief and parents’ autonomy support for this variable (see Table 7).

Children’s perceived value of science. Though parent’s literalism negatively predicted the child’s perceived value of science, there was no significant interaction of parents’ endorsement of literal belief and parents’ autonomy support for this variable (see Table 7).

Children’s general religiosity. Confirming Study 1 findings, the results showed a significant interaction of parents’ endorsement of literal belief and parents’ autonomy support for children’s religious belief (see Table 7). Parents’ autonomy support around children’s religious belief showed stronger positive link to children’s general religiosity for those with literal parents

(ß = .37, t = 7.09, CI 95% = [.27, .47]), compared to those with parents who did not endorse literal belief (ß = .10, t = 1.90, CI 95% = [-.003, .21]).

Children’s literal belief. The results showed a significant interaction of parents’ literal belief and parents’ autonomy support (see Table 7). Parents’ autonomy support around children’s religious belief showed stronger positively link to children’s literal belief for those with parents high in literal belief (ß = .46, t = 9.84, CI 95% = [.36, .55]). This link was not significant for those with parents low in literal belief (ß = -.02, t = -.33, CI 95% = [-.11, .08]).

Children’s religious identification. The results showed a significant interaction of parents’ endorsement of literal belief and parents’ autonomy support (see Table 7). For those with literal parents, parents’ autonomy support around children’s religious belief showed stronger positive link to the extent to which children identify with religious values and practices BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 25

(ß = .39, t = 7.56, CI 95% = [.29, .49]). The link was weaker for those with parents who did not endorse literal belief (ß = .13, t = 2.49, CI 95% = [.03, .23]). This result suggested that provision of autonomy support in religious parenting generally promoted greater religious identification in children, and particularly more strongly when parents endorse literal belief.

Children’s religious introjection. The results showed a significant interaction of parents’ endorsement of literal belief and parents’ autonomy support (see Table 7). Parents’ autonomy support around children’s religious belief showed negative correlation with children’s religious introjection for those whose parents endorsed less literal belief (ß = -.19, t = -3.34, CI

95% = [-.30, -.08]). However, for those with literal parents, the extent to which parents provide autonomy support around children’s religious belief did not mitigate the guilt and anxiety around children’s religious belief, as shown in a non-significant correlation between parents’ autonomy support and children’s religious introjection (ß = .05, t = .82, CI 95% = [-.06, .15]).

Moderated mediation models. Next, conducted two separate moderated mediation models using PROCESS’s Model 7 (Hayes, 2018); one predicting child’s interest in science and the second predicting perceived value of science. We entered children’s ratings of parents’ autonomy support as X variable, children’s ratings of parents’ literal belief as the moderator (W), and child’s literal belief as the mediator (M). The model is depicted in Figure 1.

The conditional indirect effects from parents’ autonomy support around religion to children’s interest in science (Table 4) and perceived value of science (Table 5) through children’s endorsement of literal belief were significant only when parents’ literal belief was at the mean or above, but not when parents’ literal belief was below the mean.

Summary of confirmatory findings. Overall, the results showed that parents’ support for religious autonomy were linked more directly and strongly to the strength of children’s BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 26 religious belief, as well as their endorsement of the Bible teachings and their identification with their religious faith. These associations were particularly stronger for those with parents who endorse stronger literal beliefs. The interesting part of these findings is the association between parents’ support for religious autonomy and children’ religious introjects. Self-determination theory literature (Ryan & Deci, 2017) suggests that autonomy support from parents often reduce children’s feelings of anxiety and guilt when children fail to live up to certain standards.

However, we found it was only the case for those with parents who were low in literal belief. So, while parents’ support for religious autonomy related to greater religious identification and stronger faith, it had little effect on children’s anxiety and guilt levels for those with literal parents. Further, for those with parents high in literal belief, the support they receive from their parents around their faith contributes to their stronger endorsement of the same biblically literal worldview, which in turn related negatively with their attitudes toward science.

Exploratory analyses

With data collected from the parents of 219 child subjects, we conducted the same analyses we did with children’s ratings except we used the parent’s own reports of their autonomy support as the independent variables. We preregistered these analyses, but were uncertain that we would obtain a large enough sample to find significant effects; thus we designated these tests as exploratory. We presented correlations between parents’ ratings with children’s ratings in Table 9.

As shown in Table 8 and in the bottom half of Figure 1, moderated mediation analyses showed significant indirect effects from parents’ autonomy support to lower children’s perceived value of science through children’s literal belief for parents who endorse stronger literal belief.

The indirect effect was not significant for children’s interest in science based on observation of BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 27 the confidence interval, though the direction of the effect was consistent with our previous findings.

Again, these results suggested that when literal parents support their children’s religious autonomy, this parenting practice leads children to also endorse literal belief, which in turn negatively correlates with their valuing of science and scientific discoveries. So, even though the direct effect from parents’ autonomy support to children’s valuing science was not significant, this effect emerged through increased children’s belief for parents who held strong literal belief.

While the effects of the analyses that included parents’ ratings were smaller, they were consistent with the effects we found with child’s ratings. This provides additional support for our initial findings in Study 1.

General discussion

In the introduction of this paper, we argued that if religious parents were autonomy supportive toward their children’s religious belief, support would yield positive association with children’s interest in science, perceived value of science and belief in science. We did not find that association. Instead we found that when parents held literal beliefs, these literal beliefs were passed on to the children. Literal beliefs were, in turn, associated with lower levels of interest in science and with seeing less value in science. However, it was not that case that those who did not hold literalist beliefs saw science more positively overall: lower levels of literalism were not consistently associated with attitudes towards science.

Evidence for these claims comes from two studies described here: the first of which was exploratory, the second of which was a preregistered replication of the first. Additionally, we also collected data from parents in the second study; this data yielded markedly similar relations as those reported by the child subjects. However, with a much smaller sample we were limited BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 28 on statistical power so some effects did not reach conventional levels of significance. Further, it is to be expected that in a dyad, actor effect is likely to be larger than partner effect (e.g., Orth,

2013). Nonetheless, these relations—zero-order, direct, and indirect—all evinced the same patterns with effects of a similar magnitude.

We wish to highlight a few patterns of results, which are of practical importance. First, the present results provide some descriptive information of how religious parents communicate with their children on different topics. Specifically, it was showed that children who grow up with biblical literalism are provided little autonomy in opinions around a variety of different topics, among which are discussions around religion, science discoveries and evolution.

Nonetheless, to the extent that literalist parents support their children’s religious autonomy – that is, listening to children’s perspectives and communicating rules with clear rationales rather than using controlling parenting techniques, this effort contributes more toward strengthening children’s belief and religious identification, and less toward allowing them to endorse scientific alternatives. Note also that, in Study 2, parents’ literal belief yields positive association with children’s religious introjection; that is, children of parents who endorse greater literal belief feel greater guilt and anxiety around their faith and religious practices. Further research is needed to examine whether this level of guilt and anxiety might come from internal conflicts that children of literalist parents experience when questioning their own beliefs and contemplating alternative, scientific explanations of the world.

Second, the moderated mediation models replicated consistently across both studies.

These findings demonstrated that child subjects’ subpar attitudes toward science are predicted by the children’s own internalization of religious values from parents who are supportive and understanding. In other words, children of literal parents who are more supportive and BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 29 understanding find science less appealing because they internalize their parents’ beliefs, not because they are forced by their parents to turn away from science. Nonetheless, in our studies, parents’ support for religious autonomy does not necessitate parents’ active provision of opportunities for children to interact with science. In other words, it is possible that, while literal parents might allow their children to consider other perspectives different from parents’ religious teachings, parents might provide little opportunities for their children to learn more about science, such as going to science museums or encouraging the children to pursue scientific subjects at school. Parents’ involvement in building “science capital” (Archer, Dawson, DeWitt,

Seakins, & Wong, 2015) involves extensive investment early on in a child’s development, such as choices of school and extracurricular activities. Therefore, our findings could be interpreted as that this investment is lacking in religious upbringings, especially if parents’ primary goal is to get their children to adopt Bible truth (Darnell & Sherkat, 1997). However, because we did not ask child subjects to report how often they engaged in science-related activities with their parents, this interpretation remains post-hoc and thus warrants further investigations.

Limitations

There are, of course, limitations to all research. First is that we examined only Christian parents. This is due to the fact that Biblical literalism is a feature unique to Christianity and shows unique relations with science within US samples. Of course, future researchers may wish to examine other extreme orientations within other religions or within other cultures. A second is that we used a cross-section design to examine interpersonal processes. While we are not interpreting our mediation results here as causal, per se, they do rest on previous findings which do make causal claims. Specifically, due to temporal constraints, parents are necessarily socializers of their children and pass on important information throughout a child’s life; this must BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 30 occur prior to a child adopting some belief. Additionally, the aforementioned research using longitudinal has shown that a relation between parental religious beliefs predicts a child’s attitudes towards science nearly 20 years later (McPhetres & Zuckerman, 2018, study 2). Thus, we interpret this model following past literature. However, more data is needed to explore these effects fully.

A third limitation is the sample from which we draw our conclusions, which is composed of university students and a national online sample. This sample is also limited only to religious parents (though child subjects may be non-religious), which restricts the range of correlations and necessarily limits the information that can be gleaned from the parent-child data. While the sample is large and this study includes a preregistered replication, these limitations should be kept in mind when interpreting these results.

Final Comments

In summary, the present research again highlights the incompatibility between science and specific type of religious belief—literal Christianity. These results, to our knowledge, represent the first demonstration of this relation in the context of religious parenting. They show that it is through the transmission of literal beliefs that children of religious parents come to value science less—especially when those parents hold to a literal interpretation of the Bible. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 31

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Tables Table 1. Complete demographics for studies 1 and 2. Study 1 Study 2 Child Child Parent Included N 119 653 301 Male 46 174 120 Female 72 465 180 M: 38.56 M: 29.11 M: 53.94 Age SD: 11.89 SD: 11.93 SD: 9.12 Ethnicity White 77% 74% 73% Black 8% 9% 6% Latino 4% -% -% Asian 8% 8% 16% Native American 1% 1% <1% Other 3% 9% 6% Education No formal credential - 1% High school/GED - 10% 2% Some college - 37% 11% Associate - 5% 7% Bachelor - 27% 25% Master’s - 14% 7% Doctorate/Professional - 6% 49% Religiosity Christian 62% 74% 92% Judaism 3% - - Islam 4% <1% <1% Spiritual 4% - - Non-religious 7% 6% 2% Atheist 7% 6% <1% Agnostic 10% 10% 1% Other 3% 4% 4% BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES

Table 2. Zero-order correlation of child’s ratings in Studies 1 and 2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

Reports about one’s parents 1 Literal belief -.210* -.274** -.347** -.363** -.338** -.381** -.251** .405** -.138 .175 -.231* .270** .044 -.007 -0.086 2 AS - career -.257** .675** .753** .758** .652** .584** .765** .107 -.134 .075 -.05 .135 .148 .072 -0.074 3 AS - science -.338** .641** .707** .751** .686** .710** .653** -.053 -.144 .137 -.001 .083 .230* .107 -0.098 4 AS - religion -.374** .650** .684** .828** .737** .716** .777** .138 -.123 .200* -.095 .198* .131 .022 -0.066 5 AS - morality .826** .713** .748** .057 -.11 .163 -.028 .140 .11 .035 -0.039 6 AS - abortion .655** .693** .097 -.029 .101 .017 .123 .042 -.026 0.018 7 AS - evolution .608** .022 -.224* .275** -.03 .198* .157 -.017 -0.139 8 AS - politics .253** -.248** .243** -.211* .291** .054 -.11 -.231* Reports about one’s own belief 9 Literal inclusion .500** .015 .002 .036 -.310** .468** -.488** .694** -.271** -.448** -.352** 10 Literal exclusion -.005 -.169* -.159* -.201** -.297** -.653** .389** -.705** .146 .231* .755** 11 Symbolic inclusion .072 -.033 -.059 -.058 .266** -.490** -.154 .723** -0.037 -.167 -.475** 12 Symbolic exclusion -.169* -.056 -.071 -.086 -.411** .379** .155* -.455** .303** .408** .385** 13 Religiosity .280** .11 .012 .079 .647** -.666** .595** -.326** -.242** -.361** -.613** 14 Interest in science -.057 .036 .029 -.006 -.140* .137* -.102 .121 -.105 .713** .363** 15 Value of science -.121 .11 .171* .087 -.267** .077 -.038 .194** -.144* .646** .483** 16 Beliefs in Science Note: Correlations in the top half are from Study 1, correlations in the bottom half are from Study 2; *p < .05, **p < .01 BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES

Table 3. Interaction between parents’ levels of literal belief and their levels of support for children’s religious autonomy (Study 1) Interest in science ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents’ literalism .07 .76 [-.12 .26] .07 Parents’ autonomy support .18 1.88 [-.01, .37] .17 Parents’ literalism x autonomy support -.28 -3.17 [-.46, -.11] -.29

Value of science ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents’ literalism -.02 -.20 [-.21, .17] -.02 Parents’ autonomy support .04 .36 [-.16, .23] .03 Parents’ literalism x autonomy support -.25 -2.75 [-.43, -.07] -.25

Belief in science ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents’ literalism -.13 -1.28 [-.32, .07] -.12 Parents’ autonomy support -.10 -1.05 [-.30, .09] -.10 Parents’ literalism x autonomy support -.08 -.89 [-.26, .10] -.08

BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES

Table 4. Conditional indirect effect of parents' autonomy support around the topic of religion to child’s interest in science through child's literal belief at different levels of parents’ literal belief Study 1 Sample size = 118 Moderated mediation model (DV = interest in science)

(a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI

Conditional indirect effect through mediator [(a1 + a3W)b1] -.10 [-.20, -.04] Conditional indirect effect at different values of moderators

Values of moderator (parents’ literal belief) (a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI 1 SD below the mean .01 [-.04, .11] At the mean -.09 [-.15, -.03] 1 SD above the mean -.19 [-.32, -.08] Study 2 Sample size = 644 Moderated mediation model (DV = interest in science)

(a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI

Conditional indirect effect through mediator [(a1 + a3W)b1] -.04 [-.06, -.02] Conditional indirect effect at different values of moderators

Values of moderator (parents’ literal belief) (a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI 1 SD below the mean .00 [-.01, .02] At the mean -.04 [-.06, -.02] 1 SD above the mean -.08 [-.12, -.04]

Notes. The conditional indirect effect is calculated by (a1 + a3W)b1 where a1 is the path from parents' autonomy support to child's literal belief (from the mediator variable model), a3 is the path from the interaction of parents' beliefs with parents' autonomy support around the topic of religion to child's literal belief (from the mediator variable model), W is parents' literal belief, and b1 is the path from child’s literal belief to child's interest in science (from the dependent variable model).

Table 5. Conditional indirect effect of parents' autonomy support around the topic of religion to child’s perceived value of science through child's literal belief at different levels of parents’ literal belief BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES

Study 1 Sample size = 118 Moderated mediation model (DV = value of science)

(a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI

Conditional indirect effect through mediator [(a1 + a3W)b1] -.16 [-.28 -.07] Conditional indirect effect at different values of moderators

Values of moderator (parents’ literal belief) (a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI 1 SD below the mean .02 [-.06, .16] At the mean -.14 [-.22, -.06] 1 SD above the mean -.30 [-.45, -.16] Study 2 Sample size = 644 Moderated mediation model (DV = value of science)

(a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI

Conditional indirect effect through mediator [(a1 + a3W)b1] -.07 [-.09, -.04] Conditional indirect effect at different values of moderators

Values of moderator (parents’ literal belief) (a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI 1 SD below the mean .00 [-.02, .03] At the mean -.06 [-.09, -.04] 1 SD above the mean -.13 [-.17, -.08]

Notes. The conditional indirect effect is calculated by (a1 + a3W)b1 where a1 is the path from parents' autonomy support to child's literal belief (from the mediator variable model), a3 is the path from the interaction of parents' beliefs with parents' autonomy support around the topic of religion to child's literal belief (from the mediator variable model), W is parents' literal belief, and b1 is the path from child’s literal belief to child's perceived value of science (from the dependent variable model).

Table 6. Conditional indirect effect of parents' autonomy support around the topic of religion to child’s perceived value of science through child's literal belief at different levels of parents’ literal belief BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES

Study 1 Sample size = 118 Moderated mediation model (DV = belief in science)

(a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI

Conditional indirect effect through mediator [(a1 + a3W)b1] -.12 [-.23, -.04] Conditional indirect effect at different values of moderators

Values of moderator (parents’ literal belief) (a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI 1 SD below the mean .02 [-.05, .12] At the mean -.10 [-.19, -.03] 1 SD above the mean -.22 [-.38, -.09]

Notes. The conditional indirect effect is calculated by (a1 + a3W)b1 where a1 is the path from parents' autonomy support to child's literal belief (from the mediator variable model), a3 is the path from the interaction of parents' beliefs with parents' autonomy support around the topic of religion to child's literal belief (from the mediator variable model), W is parents' literal belief, and b1 is the path from child’s literal belief to child's perceived value of science (from the dependent variable model). BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES

Table 7. Interaction between parents’ levels of literal belief and their levels of support for children’s religious autonomy (Study 2) General religiosity ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents' literalism .37 9.44 [.29, .44] .35 Parents' autonomy support .24 6.07 [.16, .31] .23 Parents' literalism x autonomy support .14 3.73 [.06, .20] .15

Literal belief ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents' literalism .54 15.51 [.47, .60] .52 Parents' autonomy support .22 6.38 [.15, .29] .24 Parents' literalism x autonomy support .24 7.39 [.17, .30] .28

Religious identification ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents' literalism .40 10.38 [.32, .47] .38 Parents' autonomy support .26 6.79 [.18, .33] .26 Parents' literalism x autonomy support .13 3.64 [.06, .20] .14

Religious introjection ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents' literalism .17 4.19 [.09, .25] .16 Parents' autonomy support -.07 -1.75 [-.15, .01] -.07 Parents' literalism x autonomy support .12 3.08 [.04, .19] .12

Science interest ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents' literalism -.04 -1.07 [-.13, .04] -.04 Parents' autonomy support -.07 -1.79 [-.16, .01] -.07 Parents' literalism x autonomy support -.06 -1.59 [-.14, .01] -.06

Value of science ß t 95% CI of B partial r Parents' literalism -.12 -2.89 [-.20, -.04] -.11 Parents' autonomy support -.09 -2.14 [-.17, -.01] -.08 Parents' literalism x autonomy support -.05 -1.32 [-.13, .03] -.05

BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 44

Table 8. Conditional indirect effect of parents' ratings of general provision of autonomy support to child’s science attitudes through child's literal belief at different levels of parents’ ratings of their own literal belief (Sample size = 219) DV = Child’s interest in science Moderated mediation model

(a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI

Conditional indirect effect through mediator [(a1 + a3W)b1] -.02 [-.05, .00] Conditional indirect effect at different values of moderators

Values of moderator (parents’ literal belief) (a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI 1 SD below the mean .02 [-.00, .05] At the mean .00 [-.01, .02] 1 SD above the mean -.02 [-.07, .01] DV = Child’s perceived value of science Moderated mediation model

(a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI

Conditional indirect effect through mediator [(a1 + a3W)b1] -.04 [-.07, -.01] Conditional indirect effect at different values of moderators

Values of moderator (parents’ literal belief) (a1 + a3W)b1 95% CI 1 SD below the mean .04 [.00, .08] At the mean .00 [-.03, .04] 1 SD above the mean -.04 [-.11, .02]

Notes. The conditional indirect effect is calculated by (a1 + a3W)b1 where a1 is the path from parents' autonomy support to child's literal belief (from the mediator variable model), a3 is the path from the interaction of parents' beliefs with parents' autonomy support around the topic of religion to child's literal belief (from the mediator variable model), W is parents' literal belief, and b1 is the path from child’s literal belief to child's science attitudes (from the dependent variable model). BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 45

Table 9. Correlations between parents' ratings and child's ratings on main variables 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Parents' ratings Parents' support for 1 religious autonomy 2 Parents' literal belief -.275** Parents' symbolic 3 -.241** .612** belief Child' ratings Parents' support for 4 .371** -.199** -.167* religious autonomy 5 Parents' literal belief -.219** .412** .211** -.374** Parents' evolutionist 6 .073 -.275** -.170* .215** -.487** belief 7 Religosity -.048 .299** .213** .079 .280** -.301** 8 Literal inclusion -.138* .416** .208** .036 .500** -.314** .647** 9 Literal exclusion -.053 -.115 -.164* -.201** -.005 .313** -.666** -.297** 10 Symbolic inclusion .004 .161* .194** -.058 .072 -.052 .595** .266** -.490** 11 Symbolic exclusion .085 -.152* -.090 -.086 -.169* .376** -.326** -.411** .379** .155* 12 Religious intergration -.071 .320** .240** .094 .313** -.307** .871** .648** -.590** .568** -.317** 13 Religious introjection -.160* .248** .193** -.083 .247** -.115 .314** .408** -.030 .147* -.091 .360** 14 Interest in science .074 -.057 .020 -.006 -.057 .043 -.105 -.140* .137* -.102 .121 -.099 -.011 15 Value of science .129 -.075 .041 .087 -.121 .136* -.144* -.267** .077 -.038 .194** -.135* -.129 .646** Notes. Variables that pertain to parents’ beliefs are labeled as “parents’” followed by the variable names. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 46

Figure 1. Depiction of Moderated mediation PROCESS models in Studies 1 and 2.

Notes: Coefficients are named to match the coefficients presented in Tables 4 and 5 according to standard conventions Panel A depicts the child’s rating of their parents beliefs and autonomy support; Panel B depicts the parents’ independent ratings of their beliefs and autonomy support predicting the child’s independent rating of literal belief and interest/value in science. BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES 47 BIBLICAL LITERALISM AND SCIENCE ATTITUDES

Funding Statement

This project was funded by the B.H. Nguyen Fund distributed through the Rochester Area

Community Foundation to the University of Rochester. The fund was awarded to the second author for a larger project that investigates psychological factors that lead to knowledge seeking and interest in science. The first author is the Scientific Advisor of the B.H. Nguyen Fund.