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Related Experiment Videos

Religion's evolutionary landscape: counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion.

Scott Atran1, Ara Norenzayan

  • 1CNRS-Institut Jean Nicod, 75007 Paris, France. satran@umich.edu

The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
|July 23, 2005
PubMed
Summary
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Religion is a cultural byproduct, not an adaptation, emerging from ordinary cognitive processes like folkpsychology. It offers solutions to existential problems by engaging emotions through belief in supernatural agents.

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Science
  • Evolutionary Psychology
  • Anthropology

Background:

  • Religion is viewed as a cultural byproduct, not a direct evolutionary adaptation.
  • It arises from ordinary cognitive processes shaped by evolutionary pressures.
  • These processes include cognitive, emotional, and material conditions for human interaction.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore religion as a cultural byproduct of cognitive evolution.
  • To examine the role of folkpsychology and agency detection in religious beliefs.
  • To understand how religion addresses existential problems through supernatural concepts.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of cognitive domains: folkmechanics, folkbiology, and folkpsychology.
  • Focus on agency detection (Innate Releasing Mechanism) and metarepresentation.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Examination of how minimally counterintuitive beliefs address existential issues.

    • Main Results:

    • Religion exploits ordinary cognitive processes, particularly folkpsychology.
    • Agency detection, evolved for survival, is broadly triggered by various stimuli.
    • Metacognitive capacities enable belief in unverifiable supernatural worlds that offer solutions.

    Conclusions:

    • Religion is a cultural phenomenon rooted in cognitive byproducts, not a selected adaptation.
    • Supernatural beliefs provide comfort and solutions by engaging emotions and metacognition.
    • Ritualistic validation of religious beliefs is tied to emotional motivation.