Children are savvier than we thought, so why do so many of them believe in Father Christmas? Answering that question reveals a lot about child psychology, and even more about adults NewScientistAdventCalendar
, who would leave a toy in return for a pile of sweet treats. Some were simply given a description of the witch. Others also overheard their parents making an apparent phone call to her, asking her to visit, and on Halloween these parents replaced some of their offspring’s sweets with toys. Children given this “evidence” of the Candy Witch’s existence were far more likely to believe in her than those who simply had to take their parents’ word for it.
Kapitány and his colleagues recently put this idea to the test by asking children, aged from 2 to 11, to rate the “realness” of different figures on a scale of 0 to 9. As you might hope, real people and animals – such as celebrities and dinosaurs – were at the Santa, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny, all of whom come with associated rituals, were a close second. They were followed by ghosts and aliens, then finally by fictional characters like Princess Elsa from, which have no associated rituals. “Children are looking to see whether people’s behaviour is supportive of their beliefs,” says Kapitány. Santa seems to pass that test.So much for the credulous young mind.
The big question, though, is why we go out of our way to fool kids about make-believe characters. Woolley says there is no evidence that it harms children in the long term. With Santa, it might even make sense as a way to improve their behaviour. After all, he has god-like omniscience: he knows if you’ve been bad or good and may punish or reward as appropriate. Kapitány’s surveys indicate that many parents use this threat.
Given Santa’s seeming inability to keep kids in line, Kapitány suspects that these festive rituals are more about familial bonding – not to mention the sheer fun of sharing a story. Parents are often more distressed than their children when the illusion is uncovered, he says. “The magic is for the parents.”
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