Supernatural Agents Research Articles

Rethinking Autism, Theism, and Atheism

This anthropologically informed study explores descriptions of communication with invisible, superhuman agents in high functioning young adults on the autism spectrum. Based on material from interviews, two hypotheses are formulated. First, autistic individuals may experience communication with bodiless agents (e.g., gods, angels, and spirits) as less complex than interaction with peers, since it is unrestricted by multisensory input, such as body language, facial expressions, and intonation. Second, descriptions of how participants absorb into “imaginary realities” suggest that such mental states are desirable due to qualities that facilitate social cognition: While the empirical world comes through as fragmented and incoherent, imaginary worlds offer predictability, emotional coherence, and benevolent minds. These results do not conform to popular expectations that autistic minds are less adapted to experience supernatural agents, and it is instead argued that imaginative, autistic individuals may embrace religious and fictive agents in search for socially and emotionally comprehensible interaction.

“Gothic” Elements in Seneca’s Tragedies

In the present article I discuss the remarkable fact that many of the motifs to be found in Seneca’s tragedies – such as a horrible death, a madman, an obsession or some supernatural agent – are also to be found in abundance in the work of “Gothic” authors such as Ann Radcliffe and Edgar Allan Poe. Indeed, these motifs are now commonly considered to be the hallmark of the Gothic genre. I also analyse some of the techniques which Seneca uses in order to arouse fear and stimulate the reader’s imagination, comparing them with those used by Poe and other Gothic writers.

Predictive coding in agency detection

ABSTRACTAgency detection is a central concept in the cognitive science of religion (CSR). Experimental studies, however, have so far failed to lend support to some of the most common predictions that follow from current theories on agency detection. In this article, I argue that predictive coding, a highly promising new framework for understanding perception and action, may solve pending theoretical inconsistencies in agency detection research, account for the puzzling experimental findings mentioned above, and provide hypotheses for future experimental testing. Predictive coding explains how the brain, unbeknownst to consciousness, engages in sophisticated Bayesian statistics in an effort to constantly predict the hidden causes of sensory input. My fundamental argument is that most false positives in agency detection can be seen as the result of top-down interference in a Bayesian system generating high prior probabilities in the face of unreliable stimuli, and that such a system can better account for the experimental evidence than previous accounts of a dedicated agency detection system. Finally, I argue that adopting predictive coding as a theoretical framework has radical implications for the effects of culture on the detection of supernatural agency and a range of other religious and spiritual perceptual phenomena.

Agency detection in predictive minds: a virtual reality study

ABSTRACTSince its inception, explaining the cognitive foundations governing sensory experiences of supernatural agents has been a central topic in the cognitive science of religion. Following recent developments in perceptual psychology, this pre-registered study examines the effects of expectations and sensory reliability on agency detection. Participants were instructed to detect beings in a virtual forest. Results reveal that participants expecting a high probability of encountering an agent in the forest are much more likely to make false detections than participants expecting a low probability of such encounters. Furthermore, low sensory reliability increases the false detection rate compared to high sensory reliability, but this effect is much smaller than the effect of expectations. While previous accounts of agency detection have speculated that false detections of agents may give rise to or strengthen religious beliefs, our results suggest that the reverse direction of causality may also be true. Religious teachings may first produce expectations in believers, which in turn elicit false detections of agents. These experiences may subsequently work to confirm the teachings and narratives upon which the values of a given culture are built.

Exposure to White religious iconography influences Black individuals' intragroup and intergroup attitudes.

Recent studies have found that exposure to White religious iconography via priming techniques can increase White individuals' anti-Black attitudes. To date, however, no research has examined the influence of exposure to White religious iconography on Black individuals' intragroup and intergroup attitudes. We hypothesized that exposure to White religious iconography would influence Black individuals' intragroup attitudes negatively. Black participants (N = 120) were either subliminally exposed to religious images (i.e., supernatural agents or concrete religious objects) or nonreligious images (i.e., nonsupernatural agents or nonreligious objects) before their intragroup/intergroup attitudes were assessed. Exposure to images of White Jesus, but not exposure to images of generic White men, churches, or nonreligious objects increased Black individuals' explicit pro-White attitudes. In addition, exposure to White Jesus also led to increased devaluation of the ingroup; data on implicit attitudes were more mixed. Although there are many contributing factors to explain why Black adults and children may internalize anti-Black attitudes, the potential role religion may play in such processes-specifically the exposure to White religious iconography-cannot be ignored. (PsycINFO Database Record

Coming to (Terms with) Our Senses: Seeing, Hearing and Smelling the Gods

ABSTRACTDivinities all over the world are seen, heard and smelled. It is remarkable how common reports of sensory perception of the gods are and how casually they are presented, similar to any other sensory perception. Furthermore, scholarship contains a fairly detailed picture of the first-person reports about seeing, hearing and smelling divinities. Both reports about sensing the gods and scholarly reports about such accounts will briefly be introduced before the neurophenomenology of sensory perception is looked at as an additional conversation partner in this debate. This article is an attempt to appreciate the complexity of the biocultural processes that constitute sensory perception as well as to critically engage with claims of sensing the divine because immaterial gods and supernatural entities and agents cannot be seen, heard or smelled in any ordinary sense. The aim of this article is to explore the crosscultural and neurophenomenology of the senses and sensory perception as a background to understanding claims of perceiving the divine; it is not to add any new analysis or description of first-person accounts or actual instances of sensory perception of the divine but a theoretical reflection about the senses and sensory perception. An attempt at understanding what is going on when the divine is seen, heard and smelled is not made in order to dismiss or endorse such claims but to situate them. Sensing the gods leads to believing but believing also leads to perceiving.

Mentalizing skills do not differentiate believers from non-believers, but credibility enhancing displays do.

The ability to mentalize has been marked as an important cognitive mechanism enabling belief in supernatural agents. In five studies we cross-culturally investigated the relationship between mentalizing and belief in supernatural agents with large sample sizes (over 67,000 participants in total) and different operationalizations of mentalizing. The relative importance of mentalizing for endorsing supernatural beliefs was directly compared with credibility enhancing displays–the extent to which people observed credible religious acts during their upbringing. We also compared autistic with neurotypical adolescents. The empathy quotient and the autism-spectrum quotient were not predictive of belief in supernatural agents in all countries (i.e., The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States), although we did observe a curvilinear effect in the United States. We further observed a strong influence of credibility enhancing displays on belief in supernatural agents. These findings highlight the importance of cultural learning for acquiring supernatural beliefs and ask for reconsiderations of the importance of mentalizing.

「超自然的強制」が支える森林資源管理 : インドネシア東部セラム島山地民の事例より

「超自然的強制」が支える森林資源管理 : インドネシア東部セラム島山地民の事例より

Contribuições da Psicologia Evolucionista e das Neurociências para a compreensão das crenças e experiências religiosas

A pesquisa científica contemporânea sobre as crenças e experiências religiosas tem, cada vez mais, enfatizado a importância de reconhecê-las como fenômenos naturais submetidos aos mesmos mecanismos evolutivos, cognitivos e neuronais que caracterizam outras formas do comportamento humano. De uma perspectiva evolucionista, tais crenças e experiências só se tornaram possíveis graças ao desenvolvimento e à ação concatenada de várias estruturas no cérebro, em função das exigências próprias do processo de adaptação biológica. A Ciência Cognitiva da Religião tem também indicado como a experiência religiosa pode ser explicada a partir de processos perceptivos, linguísticos e cognitivos básicos. Tais abordagens parecem cada vez mais convergir para uma compreensão das origens naturais da religião, ainda que por vezes divirjam nos detalhes e recortes utilizados. O presente artigo tem como objetivo apresentar uma revisão dessas contribuições, discutindo sua fundamentação empírica e suas limitações teóricas e metodológicas. Os autores abordam as funções cognitivas que estariam na gênese da crença em agentes e fenômenos sobrenaturais e na vivência do ritual religioso. São também apresentados estudos sobre as bases neurofisiológicas da crença e da experiência religiosa, incluindo investigações recentes sobre sua modificação por meio de neuromodulação. Os autores concluem discutindo implicações dessas pesquisas para o campo mais amplo da ciência da religião.

Religion and expanding the cooperative sphere in Kastom and Christian villages on Tanna, Vanuatu

ABSTRACTThe coexistence of Christian and traditional “Kastom” beliefs on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu provides an especially interesting environment in which to investigate the association between religion and cooperation. Here I use an experimental economic game together with ethnographic and survey data to compare religious beliefs and practices and their association with cooperative behavior across two communities – one predominantly Christian and one predominantly Kastom. Results show some evidence of bias in favor of the self in the Kastom but not the Christian village, although the overall allocations are not significantly different between villages. Allocations to self or own village were generally lower for those who professed belief in a more omniscient and rewarding supernatural agent and for those who engaged in ritual acts of devotion more frequently, although the relationship with ritual devotion and local garden spirit beliefs varied across sites. These findings highlight intriguing differences between the two sites and provide some support for the hypothesis that elements of religion may function to facilitate the expansion of cooperation to co-religionists beyond the local community.

Jesus vs. the ancestors: how specific religious beliefs shape prosociality on Yasawa Island, Fiji

ABSTRACTWe investigate how religious beliefs in an omnipotent, omniscient God vs. locally concerned, more limited gods impact prosocial behavior at varying degrees of social distance. We recruit participants from traditional villages on Yasawa Island, Fiji. Yasawan religion includes belief in both universalistic Christian teachings and local deified ancestor spirits (Kalou-vu). Yasawans’ contrasting reliance on local, kin-based social networks and anonymous economic market exchange provides an interesting test case for how religious beliefs interact with wider social structures. We use an experimental priming procedure to test whether reminders of Christian vs. traditional imagery, as compared to neutral, influence local or self-favoritism in the random allocation game (RAG). We find that traditional imagery caused increased local – but not self – favoritism. Priming effects depended upon perceived resource uncertainty: participants primed with Christian imagery were most likely to allocate to distant co-religionists when they were least worried about resources. However, more uncertainty predicted higher local RAG allocations, further suggesting the importance of local social networks for managing such uncertainty. We further find additional support for previous findings that prosocial effects of punitive supernatural agent beliefs depend upon uncertainty. These findings further emphasize the interplay between contents of cultural forms like religious belief and socioecological context.

Modelling terror management theory: computer simulations of the impact of mortality salience on religiosity

ABSTRACTThis article outlines the development – and reports on the experimental findings – of two computational models designed to simulate the dynamic systems and behavioural patterns identified and clarified by research on terror management theory. The causal architectures of these models are informed by empirical research on the effects of mortality salience on “religiosity” (and vice versa). They are also informed by research on the way in which perception of personal and environmental hazards activate evolved cognitive and coalitional precautionary systems that can intensify anxiety-alleviating behaviours such as imaginative engagement with supernatural agents postulated within a religious coalition. The capacity of the models to produce emergent patterns and behaviours that are similar to the results of other empirical studies supports the plausibility of their causal architectures. After tracing some of the literature that supports the causal dynamics of our models, we present the two models, describe the experiments, and report the results. We conclude by discussing the importance of the findings, the limitations of the models, and directions for future research.

THE IMPACT OF RELIGION ON VALUES AND BEHAVIOR IN KENYA

Purpose: The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of religion on values and behaviour in Kenya.Methodology: The paper adopted a desk top research design. The design involves a literature review of existing studies relating to the research topic. Desk top research is usually considered as a low-cost technique compared to other research designs.Results: Based on the literature review, the study concluded that religion has positive impact on values and behavior. The study further concludes that a belief in fearful and punishing aspects of supernatural agents is associated with honest behavior, whereas a belief in the kind, loving aspects of gods is less relevant.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study recommended that policy makers should review policies involving religion by changing commonly held beliefs regarding the Constitution and religion. The study also recommended that religious leaders and parents take special care of the religious formation of children, especially during the transition period from childhood to adolescence, when they are most likely to lose their religious faith.

Is God just a big person? Children's conceptions of God across cultures and religious traditions.

The present research examines the influence of intuitive cognitive domain and religion on the God concepts of children growing up in religious traditions that present God in ways varying from abstract to concrete. In Study 1, we compared children from a Latter-Day Saints (LDS) background with those from mainstream Christian (MC) backgrounds in the United States. In contrast to MC theology that holds that God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and disembodied, LDS theology depicts God as embodied. In Study 1, 3- to 7-year-olds from LDS and MC backgrounds were asked about supernatural mental and immaterial attributes of God, a ghost, a dad, and a bug. In Study 2, children ages 3-7 from Muslim and Catholic backgrounds in Indonesia were presented with a variant of Study 1. Taken together, the two studies examine the God concepts of children raised in three different religious traditions with God concepts that range from highly abstract to concrete. Overall, we find that the youngest children, regardless of religion, distinguish God from humans and hold similar ideas of God, attributing more supernatural psychological than physical properties. Older children's conceptions of God are more in line with the theological notions of their traditions. The results suggest that children are not simply anthropomorphic in their God concepts, but early on understand supernatural agents as having special mental properties and they continue to learn about differences between agents, influenced by their religious traditions. Statement of contribution What is already known on this subject Research on children's God concepts has established that children begin to distinguish the mind of God from that of humans by around age 4-5. The main debate in the field is whether children start out thinking about God in anthropomorphic terms or whether they start out with an undifferentiated idea of agents' minds as all having access to knowledge. Research on children's understanding of immortality has demonstrated that around the same age that children begin differentiating God's mind from human minds, they also differentiate between the two in terms of life-cycle attributes, attributing immortality to God, but not to humans. What does this study add? The present research contributes to the field by examining the God concepts of children from different religious backgrounds. These religious backgrounds have theologies with God concepts that range from physically concrete (Latter-Day Saints or Mormonism) to highly abstract (Islam). We also include Christian samples for comparison. The present research examines children's attributions to different supernatural agents including God, but also a ghost and an angel. The present studies look at children's attribution of not only supernatural mental attributions, but also the supernatural physical attributions of immateriality and omnipresence that have been understudied.

Indirect Reciprocity and Reputation Management in Religious Morality Relating to Concepts of Supernatural Agents

Concerns with reputation are found in relation to human notions about rank, honour, religious notions and sacred values. In cognitive and evolutionary approaches to religion, such as “adaptivist” and “by-product” theories, concepts of reputation are usually given only an indirect significance. From an “adaptivist” perspective, belief in supernatural punishment supports commitment enhancement and promotes intra-group competition, especially in the absence of concerns about reputational pressure. Alternative accounts, found in “by-product” and “standard model” – approaches, suggests that to attribute moral notions to supernatural agents derive from human cognitive systems devoted to social interaction and coordination entailing reputation monitoring. More profoundly, in altruist and mutualist models of human cooperation and morality, reputation implies different functions and, by consequence, reputation in “adaptivist” and “by-product” theories is awarded different degree of importance. The aim of this article is to analyse a predominant type of religious morality by focusing on conceptualisation of supernatural agents and the function of reputation monitoring. I shall compare altruist and mutualist accounts and adopt the latter to complement our understanding of the social cognitive machinery that underpins the relevance and attribution of moral notions to supernatural agents. I shall argue that concern about reputation is close at hand in the cognition of supernatural agents since: a) according to mutualistic theories, reputation holds a significant position in cooperation and morality and this has consequences for how religious morality ought to be modelled; b) supernatural agents are supposedly “full access agents” and aware of “strategic information” because they are omniscient agents that know everything of importance for a believer’s reputation and the dynamics of indirect reciprocity in which the believer takes part.

Episodic Poetics: Politics and Literary Form after the ConstitutionGothic Subjects: The Transformation of Individualism in American Fiction, 1790–1861The Life and Undeath of Autonomy in American Literature

Episodic Poetics: Politics and Literary Form after the ConstitutionGothic Subjects: The Transformation of Individualism in American Fiction, 1790–1861The Life and Undeath of Autonomy in American Literature

A Web-based Database for Drawings of Gods

This original web-based database was developed at the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) as part of the international research project “Drawings of gods”, which explores children's representations of supernatural agents. Its primary purpose is to store and organize data and metadata to be easily accessible to all affiliated researchers. However, anyone interested in the matter can view the drawings, as they were made publicly available. At present, our corpus is composed of over 5'100 drawings collected in different parts of the world (i.e., Japan, Russia, Switzerland, Romania, USA and Iran) and yet constantly developing.

The religious affordance of fiction: a semiotic approach

A curious aspect of late modern religion is the emergence of fiction-based religions, such as Jediism, based on George Lucas’ Star Wars saga, and Tolkien spirituality, based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s literary mythology about Middle-earth. This article draws on narrative semiotics to explain why some fictional narratives (and not others) afford religious use and have hence given rise to fiction-based religions. I show that to afford religious use it is not enough that supernatural fiction tells about supernatural agents; it must also, to some extent, construct an aura of factuality around these supernatural agents. The main aim of this article is to identify and discuss those textual ‘veracity mechanisms’ that in various ways can help achieve such a sense of factuality. Each veracity mechanism is discussed and illustrated with examples from supernatural fiction, especially from Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. I furthermore show how conceptual blending theory can be used to analyse the cognitive processes involved in the religious interpretation of supernatural fiction. While the empirical focus is on supernatural fiction and fiction-based religion, the wider implications for the study of religious narratives are discussed throughout.

A Fixed Meaning of 'Religion' in the First Amendment

A Fixed Meaning of 'Religion' in the First Amendment is one of very few attempts in First Amendment literature to advocate for a fixed meaning of in the First Amendment based on original intent and understanding. Despite its seeming importance as a threshold issue, the Supreme Court has never clearly defined this key word. This article's novel definition focuses on the worship of supernatural agents. The definition aims to remain true to the original understanding and intent behind the term while creating a workable test for a pluralistic society. The article analyzes and criticizes the major scholarship proposing a definition and then offers a novel approach. While the debate may seem initially like an academic one, defining religion is key to determining the nature and scope of religious freedom.

Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of Religion.

Recent studies of the evolution of religion have revealed the cognitive underpinnings of belief in supernatural agents, the role of ritual in promoting cooperation, and the contribution of morally punishing high gods to the growth and stabilization of human society. The universality of religion across human society points to a deep evolutionary past. However, specific traits of nascent religiosity, and the sequence in which they emerged, have remained unknown. Here we reconstruct the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors in early modern humans using a global sample of hunter-gatherers and seven traits describing hunter-gatherer religiosity: animism, belief in an afterlife, shamanism, ancestor worship, high gods, and worship of ancestors or high gods who are active in human affairs. We reconstruct ancestral character states using a time-calibrated supertree based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification and then test for correlated evolution between the characters and for the direction of cultural change. Results indicate that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism, in agreement with long-standing beliefs about the fundamental role of this trait. Belief in an afterlife emerged, followed by shamanism and ancestor worship. Ancestor spirits or high gods who are active in human affairs were absent in early humans, suggesting a deep history for the egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies. There is a significant positive relationship between most characters investigated, but the trait “high gods” stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s12110-016-9260-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.