Religion Imagined: The Conceptual Substructures of American Religious Understandings

Abstract

Sociologists have increasingly drawn on the cognitive sciences to better theorize how culture works. While this shift has improved understandings of the distinct qualities of practical and discursive modes of cognition, limited consideration has been given to the cognitive structures that scaffold cultural understandings. This article theorizes the influence of “image schemas” in structuring cultural understandings beneath the level of conscious awareness. After outlining how image schemas can be identified in interviews, I reconstruct how 50 religious Americans unconsciously “imagine” religion's role in their lives. Focusing on the implicit rather than respondents' explicit discourse, I identify five image schemas that structure Americans' religious understandings. Although respondents' understandings often appear incoherent and inconsistent at the level of explicit discourse, I show that they are coherent and consistent at the level of implicit image schemas. I then use factor analysis to identify patterns in these implicit understandings across social divisions. I conclude by discussing the promise of image schema analysis for improving studies of religion and other areas, as well as for theorizing how culture works.