But Why?: Children’s belief in the necessity of explanations

Abstract

Children exhibit sophisticated explanatory judgments: they expect, value, and judge explanations of salient facts. Do children also believe that everything must have an explanation? If so, they would exhibit a metaphysical explanatory judgment conforming to what philosophers have called the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR). In this study, 6–9-year-old children (N = 80, M_age = 7.92, SD_age = 1.21) were shown statements across domains (Psychology, Biology, Nature, Physics, Religion, and Supernatural). For each statement, children were asked if they agree with a person who says there must be an explanation, even if we do not know it, or with a person who says there may not be an explanation. As a comparison, children were also asked about coincidences, which should not necessitate an explanation under the PSR. Results suggest that indeed children conform to the PSR: children of all ages believed that the statements must have an explanation. Notably, 7–9-year-olds thought coincidences do not have to have an explanation, while 6-year-olds did not differ between the statements and coincidences. This is the first step at uncovering a developmental change in our metaphysical explanatory judgments.