THE FORM AND FUNCTION OF YOUNG CHILDRENS MAGICAL BELIEFS

Research and common lore suggest that children subscribe to a rich wor ld of fantasy, including beliefs about magical entities and events. Th is study explores how children use magic to explain events they witnes s in the real world. Children 4, 6, and 8 years of age were asked a se t of interview questions designed to assess general magical beliefs. T hey were then presented with physical events and were asked to predict and explain their occurrence and to state whether they believed the e vents were magical. The extent of children's magical beliefs, as measu red by the interview, decreased with age. Regarding explanations of ev ents, the availability of correct physical explanations for the events accounted for a significant portion of the variance in children's cla ims that the events were magic. Findings suggest that magic is used by children as an explanatory tool when they encounter events that both violate their expectations and elude adequate physical explanation.