Wondering how: Children’s and adults’ explanations for mundane, improbable, and extraordinary events

Children aged 5 through 9 years and adults judged the reality status of parallel mundane, improbable, and extraordinary events, generated an explanation for each event, and evaluated explanations purportedly generated by other participants. Participants of all ages claimed that mundane and improbable events could happen, whereas extraordinary events could not. Participants also overwhelmingly generated natural explanations for all three types of events but did so most for mundane, less for improbable, and least for extraordinary events. Supernatural explanations followed the reverse pattern, indicating that an event’s possibility affects explanation. Participants also evaluated natural explanations most favorably and evaluated claims that there was no explanation for an event least favorably across all story types. However, significant rejection of the “no explanation” claim did not emerge until age 8 years, indicating that age affects acceptance of the idea that some events might be unexplainable.