Santa Claus alone is not enough for a Merry Christmas
Tristan Fewings/Getty Images for Hamleys
He’s making a list, he’s double-checking it, but Santa’s holiday care doesn’t seem to do anything to improve the kids’ behavior. Instead, it’s possible that broader Christmas rituals, such as putting up a tree and going caroling, encourage children to be a little nicer, a finding that could help us better understand how religion influences behavior.
“The question was: Does belief in Santa Claus affect how children behave?” he says Captain Rohan at Durham University in the UK. “This belief,…
