Kathleen H Corriveau
Biographic Data
| ID | 5046914 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kathleen H Corriveau |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kathleen H |
| FAMILY NAME | Corriveau |
| SIGNATURE | CORRIVEAU K H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Boston University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6354-1141 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 88 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
Future Teachers' Confidence and Preparedness to Support Student Mental Health: The Effectiveness of a Virtual Role‐Play Simulation Training
Educators are a major source of referral for student mental health services, yet most have little or no pre‐service preparation in this role. This study examined whether a virtual role‐play simulation training increased the self‐reported ability and willingness of pre‐service teachers to identify and refer students with mental health needs for mental health services. Using a randomized controlled design, undergraduate students ( N = 319) enrolled…
Children recognize conflicting intent in testimony
Most previous research on social learning has focused on informants' epistemic states (e.g., knowledge, expertise), but less is known about informants' motivations for sharing information. For instance, an informant can be knowledgeable but might yield personal benefits from sharing this information. Gossip is a special kind of testimony in which the relationship between the gossiper and the target of gossip is critical when determining the trust…
Exploring Facilitators and Disruptors of Polarization During Adolescence Within Contested Settings: A Case Study of Catholic and Protestant Youth in Northern Ireland
Today’s adolescents must find ways to engage in a shared reality, especially in settings marked by intergroup conflict, as a prerequisite for reducing conflict and building collective solutions to societal problems. Polarization processes (epistemic) have been notably overlooked within this critical developmental period. This qualitative case study addresses this gap by identifying key socializing actors and settings within established theoretica…
Religious polarization and justification of belief in invisible scientific versus religious entities
Children and adults express greater confidence in the existence of invisible scientific as compared to invisible religious entities. To further examine this differential confidence, 5- to 11-year-old Turkish children and their parents (N = 174, 122 females) from various regions in Türkiye, a country with an ongoing tension between secularism and religion, were tested in 2021 for their belief in invisible entities. Participants expressed more conf…
Children consider informants' explanation quality with their social dominance in seeking novel explanations
Identifying high-quality causal explanations is key to scientific understanding. This research (N = 202; 50% girls; M age: 5.82 years; 64% Asian, 33% White, and 3% multiracial; data collected from 2018 to 2024) examined how explanation circularity and informants' social dominance impact children's learning preferences for causal explanations. Raised in a culture valuing circular logic, Chinese children still preferred non-circular explanations an…
How does caregiver–child conversation during a scientific storybook reading impact children's mindset beliefs and persistence
This study explores how caregiver–child scientific conversation during storybook reading focusing on the challenges or achievements of famous female scientists impacts preschoolers' mindset, beliefs about success, and persistence. Caregiver–child dyads (N = 202, 100 female, 35% non-White, aged 4–5, ƒ = .15) were assigned to one of three storybook conditions, highlighting the female scientist's achievements, effort, or, in a baseline condition, ne…
Persistence in Science Play and Gender: Findings from Early Childhood Classrooms in Ireland
The under-representation of women in science disciplines is a persistent problem for workplaces and educational policy. Girls may start to disengage early from science subjects, partly due to cultural stereotypes around science and gender. Early language interventions which introduce science activities in terms of action (or process) versus identity (or fixed ability) suggest that language impacts girls’ early engagement in science tasks. Researc…
Expressions of uncertainty in invisible scientific and religious phenomena during naturalistic conversation
The impact of visualizing the group on children's persistence in and perceptions of STEM
Women are underrepresented in STEM fields across the world. We investigate a perceptual mechanism that may contribute to this gender disparity beginning in early childhood. We explore how visual information about the gender composition of a group of scientists impacts children's persistence on a STEM task and their evaluations of group members. One hundred sixty-six 4- to 6-year-old children viewed one of four groups of scientists: all-male, all-…
Belief, culture, & development: Insights from studying the development of religious beliefs and behaviors
What could have been done? Counterfactual alternatives to negative outcomes generated by religious and secular children
Recent research has shown that a religious upbringing renders children receptive to ordinarily impossible outcomes, but the underlying mechanism for this effect remains unclear. Exposure to religious teachings might alter children's basic understanding of causality. Alternatively, religious exposure might only affect children's religious cognition, not their causal judgments more generally. To test between these possibilities, 6- to 11-year-old c…
Are high levels of religiosity inconsistent with a high valuation of science? Evidence from the United States, China and Iran
We asked whether high levels of religiosity are inconsistent with a high valuation of science. We explored this possibility in three countries that diverge markedly in the relation between the state and religion. Parents in the United States ( n = 126), China ( n = 234) and Iran ( n = 77) completed a survey about their personal and parental stance towards science. The relation between religiosity and the valuation of science varied sharply by cou…
Parents’ Beliefs about Their Influence on Children’s Scientific and Religious Views: Perspectives from Iran, China and the United States
Parents in Iran, China and the United States were asked 1) about their potential influence on their children’s religious and scientific views and 2) to consider a situation in which their children expressed dissent. Iranian and US parents endorsed their influence on the children’s beliefs in the two domains. By contrast, Chinese parents claimed more influence in the domain of science than religion. Most parents spoke of influencing their children…
Unique effects of book-reading at 9-months on vocabulary development at 36-months: Insights from a nationally representative sample of Irish families
Questions and explanations in the classroom: Examining variation in early childhood teachers’ responses to children's scientific questions
What do YOU think?’: Children's questions, teacher's responses and children's follow-up across diverse preschool settings
Some, But Not All, Children Believe in Miracles
Recent findings have shown that young children resemble adults in claiming that events which violate causal laws cannot happen. Indeed, young children are especially conservative. They claim that even highly improbable events, such as finding an alligator under one’s bed, cannot happen. Children make use of this knowledge about possibility and impossibility in assessing the status of a narrative. When presented with narratives that include extrao…
‘We practise every day’: Parents’ attitudes towards early science learning and education among a sample of urban families in Ireland
Educational policies increasingly emphasise early childhood science engagement. As key influencers in children’s early learning, parents (n = 85) attending a science workshop in three urban schools in Ireland were surveyed regarding their attitudes towards science. Seventy per cent of parents believed that science education should begin in the pre-school years, before the age of four. Despite high levels of education, at least half of the parents…
Epistemic justifications for belief in the unobservable: The impact of minority status
Religious testimony in a secular society: Belief in unobservable entities among Chinese parents and their children
When learning about the existence of unobservable scientific phenomena such as germs or religious phenomena such as God, children are receptive to the testimony of other people. Research in Western cultures has shown that by 5 to 6 years of age, children-like adults-are confident about the existence of both scientific and religious phenomena. We examined the beliefs of secular and Christian children growing up in China as well as the beliefs of t…
Beliefs About Religious and Scientific Entities Among Parents and Children in Iran
Previous research has shown that children and adults express more confidence in the existence of unobservable scientific (e.g., germs), as compared to religious, phenomena (e.g., the soul). We asked if the same pattern would emerge among parents ( N = 77) and children ( N = 85) in Iran, a country with widespread commitment to religious values and beliefs. Parents expressed confidence in the existence of various scientific and religious phenomena …
God, Germs, and Evolution: Belief in Unobservable Religious and Scientific Entities in the U.S. and China
Cognitive Foundations of Learning from Testimony
Humans acquire much of their knowledge from the testimony of other people. An understanding of the way that information can be conveyed via gesture and vocalization is present in infancy. Thus, infants seek information from well-informed interlocutors, supply information to the ignorant, and make sense of communicative acts that they observe from a third-party perspective. This basic understanding is refined in the course of development. As they …
Coexisting religious and scientific beliefs among Iranian parents
Distinguishing between realistic and fantastical figures in Iran
Children in the United States come to distinguish historical from fictional story figures between the ages of 3 and 5 years, guided by the plausibility of the story events surrounding the figure (Corriveau, Kim, Schwalen, & Harris, 2009; Woolley & Cox, 2007). However, U.S. children vary in their reactions to stories that include fantastical events. Secular children with no religious education think of such stories and their protagonists as fictio…
Preschoolers monitor the relative accuracy of informants
In 2 studies, the sensitivity of 3- and 4-year-olds to the previous accuracy of informants was assessed. Children viewed films in which 2 informants labeled familiar objects with differential accuracy (across the 2 experiments, children were exposed to the following rates of accuracy by the more and less accurate informants, respectively: 100% vs. 0%, 100% vs. 25%, 75% vs. 0%, and 75% vs. 25%). Next, children watched films in which the same 2 inf…
Preschoolers (sometimes) defer to the majority in making simple perceptual judgments
Three- and 4-year-old children were asked to judge which of a set of 3 lines was the longest, both independently and in the face of an inaccurate consensus among adult informants. Children were invariably accurate when making independent judgments but sometimes deferred to the inaccurate consensus. Nevertheless, the deference displayed by both age groups proved to be circumscribed. When asked to solve a practical problem--selecting the longest st…
Monoracial and Biracial Children: Effects of Racial Identity Saliency on Social Learning and Social Preferences
Children prefer learning from, and affiliating with, their racial in-group but those preferences may vary for biracial children. Monoracial (White, Black, Asian) and biracial (Black/White, Asian/White) children (N = 246, 3-8 years) had their racial identity primed. In a learning preferences task, participants determined the function of a novel object after watching adults (White, Black, and Asian) demonstrate its uses. In the social preferences t…
Accuracy trumps accent in children's endorsement of object labels
Past research provides evidence that children use at least 2 potentially competing strategies when choosing informants: they attend to informants' past accuracy and to their social identity (e.g., their status as native- vs. foreign-accented speakers). We explore how children reconcile these 2 strategies when they are put in conflict and whether children's response changes across development. In Experiment 1 (N = 61), 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old child…
Distinguishing between realistic and fantastical figures in Iran
Children in the United States come to distinguish historical from fictional story figures between the ages of 3 and 5 years, guided by the plausibility of the story events surrounding the figure (Corriveau, Kim, Schwalen, & Harris, 2009; Woolley & Cox, 2007). However, U.S. children vary in their reactions to stories that include fantastical events. Secular children with no religious education think of such stories and their protagonists as fictio…
Young Children’s Deference to a Consensus Varies by Culture and Judgment Setting
Three- and 4-year-old Asian-American and Caucasian-American children were asked to judge which of a set of three lines was the longest, both independently and in the face of an inaccurate consensus among informants. Half of the children made their judgments privately; the other half made their judgments with the experimenter present. In the private setting, children were mostly resistant to the incorrect testimony from the consensus. By contrast,…
Religious testimony in a secular society: Belief in unobservable entities among Chinese parents and their children
When learning about the existence of unobservable scientific phenomena such as germs or religious phenomena such as God, children are receptive to the testimony of other people. Research in Western cultures has shown that by 5 to 6 years of age, children-like adults-are confident about the existence of both scientific and religious phenomena. We examined the beliefs of secular and Christian children growing up in China as well as the beliefs of t…
God, Germs, and Evolution: Belief in Unobservable Religious and Scientific Entities in the U.S. and China
What could have been done? Counterfactual alternatives to negative outcomes generated by religious and secular children
Recent research has shown that a religious upbringing renders children receptive to ordinarily impossible outcomes, but the underlying mechanism for this effect remains unclear. Exposure to religious teachings might alter children's basic understanding of causality. Alternatively, religious exposure might only affect children's religious cognition, not their causal judgments more generally. To test between these possibilities, 6- to 11-year-old c…
Coexisting religious and scientific beliefs among Iranian parents
Preschoolers monitor the relative accuracy of informants
In 2 studies, the sensitivity of 3- and 4-year-olds to the previous accuracy of informants was assessed. Children viewed films in which 2 informants labeled familiar objects with differential accuracy (across the 2 experiments, children were exposed to the following rates of accuracy by the more and less accurate informants, respectively: 100% vs. 0%, 100% vs. 25%, 75% vs. 0%, and 75% vs. 25%). Next, children watched films in which the same 2 inf…
Choosing your informant: Weighing familiarity and recent accuracy
In two experiments, children aged 3, 4 and 5 years ( N = 61) were given conflicting information about the names and functions of novel objects by two informants, one a familiar teacher, the other an unfamiliar teacher. On pre‐test trials, all three age groups invested more trust in the familiar teacher. They preferred to ask for information and to endorse the information that she supplied. In a subsequent phase, children watched as the two teache…
Preschoolers (sometimes) defer to the majority in making simple perceptual judgments
Three- and 4-year-old children were asked to judge which of a set of 3 lines was the longest, both independently and in the face of an inaccurate consensus among adult informants. Children were invariably accurate when making independent judgments but sometimes deferred to the inaccurate consensus. Nevertheless, the deference displayed by both age groups proved to be circumscribed. When asked to solve a practical problem--selecting the longest st…
Children’s selective trust in native-accented speakers: Selective trust in native-accented speakers
Across two experiments, preschool-aged children demonstrated selective learning of non-linguistic information from native-accented rather than foreign-accented speakers. In Experiment 1, children saw videos of a native- and a foreign-accented speaker of English who each spoke for 10 seconds, and then silently demonstrated different functions with novel objects. Children selectively endorsed the silent object function provided by the native-accent…
Young Children’s Deference to a Consensus Varies by Culture and Judgment Setting
Three- and 4-year-old Asian-American and Caucasian-American children were asked to judge which of a set of three lines was the longest, both independently and in the face of an inaccurate consensus among informants. Half of the children made their judgments privately; the other half made their judgments with the experimenter present. In the private setting, children were mostly resistant to the incorrect testimony from the consensus. By contrast,…
Accuracy trumps accent in children's endorsement of object labels
Past research provides evidence that children use at least 2 potentially competing strategies when choosing informants: they attend to informants' past accuracy and to their social identity (e.g., their status as native- vs. foreign-accented speakers). We explore how children reconcile these 2 strategies when they are put in conflict and whether children's response changes across development. In Experiment 1 (N = 61), 3-, 4-, and 5-year-old child…
Monoracial and Biracial Children: Effects of Racial Identity Saliency on Social Learning and Social Preferences
Children prefer learning from, and affiliating with, their racial in-group but those preferences may vary for biracial children. Monoracial (White, Black, Asian) and biracial (Black/White, Asian/White) children (N = 246, 3-8 years) had their racial identity primed. In a learning preferences task, participants determined the function of a novel object after watching adults (White, Black, and Asian) demonstrate its uses. In the social preferences t…
Distinguishing between realistic and fantastical figures in Iran
Children in the United States come to distinguish historical from fictional story figures between the ages of 3 and 5 years, guided by the plausibility of the story events surrounding the figure (Corriveau, Kim, Schwalen, & Harris, 2009; Woolley & Cox, 2007). However, U.S. children vary in their reactions to stories that include fantastical events. Secular children with no religious education think of such stories and their protagonists as fictio…
Cognitive Foundations of Learning from Testimony
Humans acquire much of their knowledge from the testimony of other people. An understanding of the way that information can be conveyed via gesture and vocalization is present in infancy. Thus, infants seek information from well-informed interlocutors, supply information to the ignorant, and make sense of communicative acts that they observe from a third-party perspective. This basic understanding is refined in the course of development. As they …
Coexisting religious and scientific beliefs among Iranian parents
Beliefs About Religious and Scientific Entities Among Parents and Children in Iran
Previous research has shown that children and adults express more confidence in the existence of unobservable scientific (e.g., germs), as compared to religious, phenomena (e.g., the soul). We asked if the same pattern would emerge among parents ( N = 77) and children ( N = 85) in Iran, a country with widespread commitment to religious values and beliefs. Parents expressed confidence in the existence of various scientific and religious phenomena …
God, Germs, and Evolution: Belief in Unobservable Religious and Scientific Entities in the U.S. and China
Some, But Not All, Children Believe in Miracles
Recent findings have shown that young children resemble adults in claiming that events which violate causal laws cannot happen. Indeed, young children are especially conservative. They claim that even highly improbable events, such as finding an alligator under one’s bed, cannot happen. Children make use of this knowledge about possibility and impossibility in assessing the status of a narrative. When presented with narratives that include extrao…
‘We practise every day’: Parents’ attitudes towards early science learning and education among a sample of urban families in Ireland
Educational policies increasingly emphasise early childhood science engagement. As key influencers in children’s early learning, parents (n = 85) attending a science workshop in three urban schools in Ireland were surveyed regarding their attitudes towards science. Seventy per cent of parents believed that science education should begin in the pre-school years, before the age of four. Despite high levels of education, at least half of the parents…
Epistemic justifications for belief in the unobservable: The impact of minority status
Religious testimony in a secular society: Belief in unobservable entities among Chinese parents and their children
When learning about the existence of unobservable scientific phenomena such as germs or religious phenomena such as God, children are receptive to the testimony of other people. Research in Western cultures has shown that by 5 to 6 years of age, children-like adults-are confident about the existence of both scientific and religious phenomena. We examined the beliefs of secular and Christian children growing up in China as well as the beliefs of t…
Are high levels of religiosity inconsistent with a high valuation of science? Evidence from the United States, China and Iran
We asked whether high levels of religiosity are inconsistent with a high valuation of science. We explored this possibility in three countries that diverge markedly in the relation between the state and religion. Parents in the United States ( n = 126), China ( n = 234) and Iran ( n = 77) completed a survey about their personal and parental stance towards science. The relation between religiosity and the valuation of science varied sharply by cou…
Parents’ Beliefs about Their Influence on Children’s Scientific and Religious Views: Perspectives from Iran, China and the United States
Parents in Iran, China and the United States were asked 1) about their potential influence on their children’s religious and scientific views and 2) to consider a situation in which their children expressed dissent. Iranian and US parents endorsed their influence on the children’s beliefs in the two domains. By contrast, Chinese parents claimed more influence in the domain of science than religion. Most parents spoke of influencing their children…
Unique effects of book-reading at 9-months on vocabulary development at 36-months: Insights from a nationally representative sample of Irish families
Questions and explanations in the classroom: Examining variation in early childhood teachers’ responses to children's scientific questions
What do YOU think?’: Children's questions, teacher's responses and children's follow-up across diverse preschool settings
Belief, culture, & development: Insights from studying the development of religious beliefs and behaviors
What could have been done? Counterfactual alternatives to negative outcomes generated by religious and secular children
Recent research has shown that a religious upbringing renders children receptive to ordinarily impossible outcomes, but the underlying mechanism for this effect remains unclear. Exposure to religious teachings might alter children's basic understanding of causality. Alternatively, religious exposure might only affect children's religious cognition, not their causal judgments more generally. To test between these possibilities, 6- to 11-year-old c…
Persistence in Science Play and Gender: Findings from Early Childhood Classrooms in Ireland
The under-representation of women in science disciplines is a persistent problem for workplaces and educational policy. Girls may start to disengage early from science subjects, partly due to cultural stereotypes around science and gender. Early language interventions which introduce science activities in terms of action (or process) versus identity (or fixed ability) suggest that language impacts girls’ early engagement in science tasks. Researc…
Expressions of uncertainty in invisible scientific and religious phenomena during naturalistic conversation
Psychology (30 works) · Developmental psychology (20 works) · Social Psychology (19 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (16 works) · Social Psychology (11 works) · Epistemology (10 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (7 works) · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology (7 works) · Early childhood (5 works) · Language Development and Disorders (5 works)