Social learning of scientific and religious views: parents as transmission agents and their approaches against dissent.

Focusing on two prominent belief frameworks - science and religion - this study examined adults' retrospective perceptions of the role their parents played in transmitting and maintaining beliefs. We adapted a previous method (McLoughlin, 2021) and asked Australian and Malaysian adults to reflect on whether and how their current scientific and religious beliefs were influenced by their parents. Across both countries, adults indicated that their parents were influential for both science and religion. Participants generally recalled scientific influence positively irrespective of how religious they were. For religion, greater participant religiosity was associated with positive influence for Australian adults only. Approximately three-quarters of Malaysian participants identified their parents as the only source for both religious and scientific beliefs. While the same proportion of Australians indicated so for science, significantly less Australian participants identified their parents as the only source for religious beliefs. When reflecting on how their parents approached conflicting views between themselves and their parents, Australian participants generally reported that their parents employed a supportive approach across both domains. Malaysian participants often reported that their parents, though open to accepting dissenting scientific beliefs with a supportive stance, were more inclined toward a directive approach when faced with conflicts in religious views. This study affords novel insights into the universality and variation of parents' roles in the transmission and maintenance of scientific and religious beliefs across diverse populations.