Culture conditioned verbal description of the image of God. Research on cognitive representation in childhood

The article presents results of research on changes in both external (expressed verbally) and internal (shown in meanings of statements) cognitive representation in late childhood. The results show changes which take place under the influence of such variables as age, religion, and country of residence. The object of the research was the area of representation which is clearly related to social and cultural conditions - the image of God. The research included 120 children, aged eight and ten years, living in England, Spain, and Poland, being believers of three religions, i.e. Roman-Catholicism, Baptism, and Islam. The children were tested with the use of Piaget's clinical conversation technique. The obtained statements were qualitatively processed by means classification and then statistically processed in order to reveal the relationship between individual aspects of the image of God and the different variables (age, religion, country of residence). The research allowed the universal attributes of God to be discovered, namely: the anthropomorphic perception of God; the description of God through his actions; the connection between the image of God and child's experiences and emotions. Significant differences related to religion, country of residence and age were also observed.