The formal-operational stage begins at about 11 years of age. The child is now capable of abstract reasoning and using formal logic and symbolic language and metaphor can now be understood. Problems are now addressed systematically hypotheses’ testing is also possible at this stage of development. The child can also recognise other people’s points of view even abstract issues like the existence of God and the purpose of life.
There are major restrictions outlined by Piaget’s theory. If it is correct then children do not have the ability to ask the existential questions that are the basis of religion. To confront the reality of the meaning of your life requires formal-operational thought. According to Piaget, the cognitive structures necessary for such thought do not exist until about age 11. As religious language is abstract and symbolic, and is beyond concrete, everyday experience, the young child cannot adequately understand it. Formal operations are required to understand this kind of language.
Ronald Goldman (1964) came to a conclusion that teaching young children about religion is potentially dangerous. If a young child encounters abstract religious language and concepts that the child cannot yet understand, they will make sense of this language using either the magical or literal thinking of their current stage. They will not understand the true meaning and purpose of the religious concepts and their understanding may be flawed.
Goldman (1964) studied the responses to questions about bible stories provided by British children in an attempt to gain some empirical support for his theory. 80% of the children aged up to 13 who were interviewed provided magical or literal interpretations of the stories. More recently a study by David Heller (1986, 1987) gave extra support for Goldman's concern. He interviewed children ranging from 4 to 12 years about their conception of God, and asked them to write letters to God, producing revealing concrete-operational examples of their thought pattern.
Goldman's concern extended further and he believed that once children had made sense of religious concepts using preformal cognitive structures either magically or literally it will be more difficult for them to appreciate the abstract nature of religious concepts later in life. Children may begin to class religion with fairy tales and as the child grows older they are faced with three options; either change the understanding of religion to allow for its abstract, existential nature, stick to a magical or literal understanding of religion and accept this as true; or to stick to a magical, literal understanding and reject it as childish.
Hoge and Petrillo (1978) have provided support for Goldman’s analysis. They found those 16 year olds who scored higher on a measure of abstract religious thinking scored lower on a measure of traditional religious beliefs. It appears that these 16 year olds were showing an adherence to a literal interpretation of religion and their religious thinking became more abstract. However the private-school Catholics were more likely to pursue the first option and change their understanding of religion to allow for non-literal, symbolic interpretations to uphold. However 16 year old Baptists in America showed signs of taking the second option and stuck to a literal interpretation of religion and accepted this as the truth.
Abraham (1981) compared the effects of a religious education curriculum designed entirely to provoke cognitive conflict, and thereby stimulate formal-operational religious thinking, with the effects of a more traditional religious education curriculum. Abraham found that 12 years olds who received the conflict-based curriculum showed reduced concrete and increased abstract religious thought compared to those who received the traditional curriculum. Fifth graders however displayed no differences in the effects of the two curricula, because they had not developed the formal-operational skills necessary to benefit from the conflict-based curriculum. It appeared that traditionally taught children were stagnating in a literal, concrete understanding of religion. This stagnation may produce a later rejection of religion, which is common in college students. Surveys have shown the number of students who report having reacted either partially or wholly against the religious beliefs they were taught is consistently around 70% (Hoge & Petrillo, 1978). It is clear that the structural changes in how we think as we mature have the capability to create important problems for our experience of religion.
Erikson's writings convinced Fowler (1981) that it was possible to provide sequentially ordered states of religious development. He identified growing strengths and potential dangers at each of the stages. Fowler claimed that his faith stages form a sequence which does not vary, and the operations of the previous stage are integrated and carried forward to the next stage. People may not experience all these stages of faith development in their lifetime but Fowler claimed that the ones they do experience are always in the same order and none can be left out. Intuitive-projective faith is the first stage and it ranges from 3 to 7 years of age, which is Piaget's preoperational stage when the child's faith is in a fantasy-filled, imitative phase heavily influenced by examples, actions, and stories of key adults. The child has the first awareness of self, as well as the first awareness of death and sex and the issues surrounding them. Intuitive understanding through imagination is the emergent faith in this stage. The risk in this stage is that the imitation will be overpowered by other. Mythic-literal faith is the second stage of faith and it coincides with Piaget's stage of concrete operations. The stories, beliefs, and practices that symbolise belonging to their community of faith are now appropriated by the child. Interpretation is, however, concrete and literal rather than abstract and symbolic. Synthetic-conventional faith is the third stage around the time of adolescence, and now as formal operations and the identity crisis are emerging the individual may begin to display a third style of faith. Faith must now be able to interpret the increasing diversity in life. Stability is needed and therefore deeply held beliefs and values may be sought, authority figures or peer role models are often identified with and their views are internalised. These beliefs and values take the form of an ideology and the individual is unaware that their view is only one of many possibilities.
Individuative-reflective faith comes during young adulthood, the individual takes responsibility for their commitments, lifestyle, beliefs, and attitudes and the self becomes more integrated. A new style of faith may emerge as a result, Fowler claimed, that it involves a system of meaning that is demythologised, with a recognition of the relativity of one's inherited worldview and rejection of literal interpretation of faith stories and myths. The emergent strength from this stage of faith is its ability for critical reflection of the individual and their worldview. The danger is however an over reliance on critical analytic thought. Sometime during the midlife period, conjunctive faith may emerge. This style of faith is almost like a second naiveté, or an opening to the voices the myths and ideals inherited from a person’s social class, ethnic background, and religious group. Connections that go beyond differences are sought and symbols are appreciated as a source of non-logical insight. The dangers of this stage are paralysing passivity, complacency, and cynical withdrawal.
Universalising faith is the highest stage of moral reasoning and is rarely reached. "They have become incarnators and actualisers of the spirit of an inclusive and fulfilled human community. They are 'contagious' in the sense that they create zones of liberation from the social, political, economic, and ideological shackles" (Fowler, 1981).
Fowler does however recognise that religious individuals who have a different perspective may well suggest a different prescriptive ordering of the stages. Fowler (1981) claims however that his model is not just a prescription for what should be; it is also an accurate description of what it is. Fowler conducted interviews with more than three hundred people from 4 to 80 years old. These people were asked about their life histories in relation to universal life issues through a brief life review, followed by a discussion of 1ife-shaping experiences, present values, commitments and religion. Content analysis was used to transcribe the interviews. The scorers assigned a stage score to each interview transcript for each of the seven aspects thought to be a part of faith development. After stage scores were assigned to each aspect, these scores were averaged to provide a stage assignment for the respondent. Fowler (1981) reported that the stage assignment ratings on the aspects could be made with good reliability. Apparently, however, many respondents did not have the same stage score on different aspects as a reliable assessment would have had. The averages tended to form a continuum of scores rather than to cluster around the integers. Fowler dealt with this problem by classifying the faith of some respondents as "in transition"; for example, individuals with a mean from 3.4 to 3.6 were classified as Stage 3-4 transitional. Roughly equal numbers of respondents were at stages 3 and 4, with a smaller percentage at stage 5. Fowler (1981) interpreted the results as supporting his claim of an invariant sequence of his six stages. However these results could easily indicate a jump from a low to high level stage. This is more than likely due to what Piaget called ‘cognitive maturation’. Consistent with this possibility, Green and Hoffman (1989) found Stage 4 and 5 responses were no less common than Stage 3 responses among college students and these are stages that should come later on in life according to the theory. Finally, only one of the three hundred people interviewed was classified as Stage 6 so the validity of this stage and what it entails is questionable. Until data is provided which shows the individual’s changes over time, it may be hasty to accept Fowler's rigid ordering of these styles of faith as a valid description of the way faith develops.
Other theories of religious development can provide interesting approaches to the study of this subject. Psychoanalytical schools are based on the work of Sigmund Freud. They have unique methodologies, which are aimed at uncovering the unconscious basis of religious beliefs, emotions, and practices. Psychoanalytic literature is the most dominant literature in psychology of religion and has had the greatest cultural impact. Object relations, like psychoanalysts, find much to illuminate in religious experience by the reconstruction of early infant states. Their methods are primarily clinical case studies of adult subjects. This qualitative information may provide more detailed information about an individual’s religious development then the cognitive approach can predict or account for.
Measurement schools provide the essential database for the empirical psychology of religion and have provided cognitivist theorists with empirical evidence. However much of the empirical research within measurement schools is essentially correlational, making causal relationships difficult to establish. Psychometric research has produced scales to measure a variety of religious phenomena including attitudes, beliefs, and values. Religion is best measured as a multidimensional construct and scales to measure religious constructs have good reliabilities and validities.
Social learning theory (Bandura, 1977) suggests that the individual gets his or her religion through a gradual process of social learning. But this theory, in spite of its enormous range of applicability, does not provide a sufficient picture of human development. It fails to consider the physical changes that take place as we grow, as well as the psychological consequences of these changes. Cognitive theory however identifies certain cognitive markers that occur at certain stages of the child’s development and how these changes have an effect on their religious development.
Cognitive approaches to the study of religion have presented us with a variety of theories connecting religion to “innate” structures, processes, and mechanisms of the brain. These theories seem to allow for easy slippage into biological reductionism, and their claims about innateness or universal cognitive mechanisms are dubious. Another point is that religious ideas are transmitted from person to person and generation to generation, and these ideas may be lost or added to. The cognitivist theorists however have failed to answer the question of why one is lost and another kept.
The majority of experiments described have limited data sets and it would be unwise to claim any understanding without further investigation. For cognitivist claims to be convincing, global experimental data would need to be collected, and age and gender recorded, as limited data may produce interesting results but it is not useful as empirical evidence.
References
Abraham, K. G. (1981). The influence of cognitive conflict on religious thinking in fifth and sixth grade children. Journal of Early Adolescence, 1, 147-154. [62]
Bandura, A. (1977). Social-learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. [53-54]
Fowler, J. W. (1981). Stages of faith. The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. San Francisco: Harper & Row. [71-75]
Goldman, R. (1964). Religious thinking from childhood to adolescence. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. [59-61]
Green, C. W., & Hoffman, C. L. (1989) Stages of faith and perceptions of similar and dissimilar others. Review of Religious Research, 30, 246-254. [75]
Heller, D. (1986). The children’s God. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [60]
Heller, D. (1987). Dear God: Children’s letters to God. New York: Doubleday. [60]
Hoge, D. R., & Petrillo, G. H. (1978) Development of religious thinking in adolescence: A test of Goldman’s theories. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 17, 139-154. [61-62]
Piaget, J. (1926). The language and thought of the child. New York: Harcourt. [57-59,148]
Piaget, J. (1953). The origins of intelligence in the child. New York: International Universities Press. [57-59, 94]
