Jesse M Bering
Biographic Data
| ID | 631054 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jesse M Bering |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jesse M |
| FAMILY NAME | Bering |
| SIGNATURE | BERING J M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen's University Belfast |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1501-702X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 137 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2001 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Examining a domain-specific link between perceived control and conspiracy beliefs
Varieties of Awe in Science Communication
Awe is a valued emotion in science communication and assumes a variety of functions in relation to the cultural mandates of the various spaces where it is represented. Based on a reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with 22 science communication practitioners, we constructed seven themes referencing this emotion’s various sociocultural roles in this space. These included the functions of awe in entertainment, curiosity, admiration, revelatio…
The construction of awe in science communication
Awe is a frequently represented and commonly experienced emotion in science communication. According to a popular account of this emotion, awe is an innate and universal human affective experience that occurs when a person evaluates a target as vast, forcing a shift in their worldview. This shift is portrayed in science communication as resulting in an enhanced interest in the scientific material at hand. Based on the latest research in affective…
Strategies to Stay Alive
Suicidal behavior constitutes a major global problem. Qualitative research utilizing the first-hand experiences of those who have survived attempts to take their own lives can offer much in the way of understanding how to live well despite ongoing suicidal behavior. Given that suicidal intentions and behaviors occur within the person's subjective construal, the solutions to living-and preferably living well-despite such inclinations must also be …
The “Ghost” in the Lab
Many nonbelievers may engage in supernatural thinking despite their statements to the contrary. Using belief in the afterlife as a test case, we examine, across two studies, the possible discrepancy between what people say they believe and how they reason implicitly. In Study 1, participants completed a mindfulness task during which a light went off unexpectedly. Half had previously been told that a ghost had recently been seen in the same room. …
How to Know You’ve Survived Death
Reports of people who have survived death have captured the attention of mainstream audiences. Why do these ideas enjoy persistent and widespread success in contemporary Western culture? Adopting a cognitive approach to the study of afterlife accounts and drawing upon our own research, we argue that mainstream survival narratives are popular because they provide convincing evidence that one has journeyed to another realm. Such accounts are convin…
Knowledge of Deaths in Hotel Rooms Diminishes Perceived Value and Elicits Guest Aversion
Guest deaths are an inevitable aspect of the hospitality industry. In Study 1, participants read a vignette in which the previous guest died of natural causes, suicide, or homicide. Those who learned of a death (a) saw the room as less valuable, (b) opted to stay in a more basic room in which no death occurred, despite both rooms being offered for free, and (c) anticipated feeling uneasy when imagining an overnight stay. In Study 2, we investigat…
Meant to be”
A large body of previous research has found that people exhibit a cognitive bias to reason teleologically about natural kinds, explaining them in terms of intelligent design and inherent purpose. In the present study, we examined whether people are also cognitively biased to explain naturally occurring events in terms of inherent purpose (i.e., mistakenly attributing intentional design behind naturally caused life events), and if so, how explicit…
The Coevolution of Secrecy and Stigmatization
Atheism is only skin deep
Cognitive scientists of religion and evolutionary theorists alike have been increasingly arguing in recent\nyears that religion is "natural" in the sense of being motivated by core, evolved psychological intuitions.\nAtheism, and irreligion more generally, appear to pose problems for the naturalness hypothesis, especially\nconsidering the significant proportion of people in contemporary societies who reject supernatural\nbeliefs. Although Geertz …
Evolutionary cyber-psychology
Concerns about reputation via gossip promote generous allocations in an economic game
Hand of God, Mind of Man
The evolution of human cooperation remains a puzzle because cooperation persists even in conditions that rule out mainstream explanations. We present a novel solution that links two recent theories. First, Johnson & Kruger (2004) suggested that ancestral cooperation was promoted because norm violations were deterred by the threat of supernatural punishment. However, this only works if individuals attribute negative life events (or a prospective a…
The folk psychology of souls
The present article examines how people's belief in an afterlife, as well as closely related supernatural beliefs, may open an empirical backdoor to our understanding of the evolution of human social cognition. Recent findings and logic from the cognitive sciences contribute to a novel theory of existential psychology, one that is grounded in the tenets of Darwinian natural selection. Many of the predominant questions of existential psychology st…
Children's attributions of intentions to an invisible agent
Children ages 3-9 years were informed that an invisible agent (Princess Alice) would help them play a forced-choice game by "telling them, somehow, when they chose the wrong box," whereas a matched control group of children were not given this supernatural prime. On 2 unexpected event trials, an experimenter triggered a simulated unexpected event (i.e., a light turning on/off; a picture falling), and children's behavioral response to these events…
"O Lord… You Perceive my Thoughts from Afar"
Across religious belief systems, some supernatural agents are nearly always granted privileged epistemic access into the self's thoughts. In addition, the ethnographic literature supports the claim that, across cultures, supernatural agents are envisioned as (1) incapable of being deceived through overt behaviors; (2) preoccupied with behavior in the moral domain; (3) punitive agents who cause general misfortune to those who transgress and; (4) c…
Primate Psychology
Reasoning about dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends
The Natural Emergence of Reasoning About the Afterlife as a Developmental Regularity
Participants were interviewed about the biological and psychological functioning of a dead agent. In Experiment 1, even 4- to 6-year-olds stated that biological processes ceased at death, although this trend was more apparent among 6- to 8-year-olds. In Experiment 2, 4- to 12-year-olds were asked about psychological functioning. The youngest children were equally likely to state that both cognitive and psychobiological states continued at death, …
Religious Concepts are Probably Epiphenomena
Religious Concepts are Probably Epiphenomena: A Reply to Pyysiäinen, Boyer, and Barrett J ESSE M. B ERING ¤ It is to the commentators’ great credit that they have managed to cull the conceptual imperfections of my article “The Natural Foundations of Afterlife Beliefs” (Bering 2002a) into a fairly coherent discussion of the “innateness” of representations of dead agents’ minds. In response to their insightful remarks, I will do my best to clarify …
Intuitive Conceptions of Dead Agents' Minds
Little is known about how the minds of dead agents are represented. In the current experiment, individuals with different types of explicit afterlife beliefs were asked in an implicit interview task whether various mental state types, as well as pure biological imperatives, continue after death. The results suggest that, regardless of one's explicit reports about personal consciousness after death, those who believe in some form of life after dea…
God is not in the Mirror
In response to my paper on possible phylogenetic divergence in the case of theistic percepts, Gallup and Maser argue that an alternative — and more heuristic — approach to studying religious phenomena can be found in neuroanatomical mapping of cognitive functions that seem to play some role in this category of thought. On the one hand, the argument is sound and will probably come to be prescient; cognitive neuroscience should begin to emerge as a…
Theistic Percepts in Other Species
The present theoretical article addresses the empirical question of whether other species, particularly chimpanzees, have the cognitive substrate necessary for experiencing theistic and otherwise non-natural (i.e., non-physical) percepts. The primary representational device presumed to underlie religious cognition was viewed as, in general, the capacity to attribute unobservable causal mechanisms to ostensible output and, in particular, a theory …
Ratcheting' up the scalae naturae
COMMENTARY ‘Ratcheting’ up the scalae naturae ? J ESSE M. B ERING ¤ Michael Tomasello (1999), The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 254 pp. ISBN 0-674-00070-6. $29.95. During a time when evolutionary psychologists are somewhat over-inclined to place cognition on the operating table and thenceforth carve up the brain into neat “no consciousness necessary” data-driven bundles, Michael Tomasello has done …
Intuitive Conceptions of Dead Agents' Minds
Little is known about how the minds of dead agents are represented. In the current experiment, individuals with different types of explicit afterlife beliefs were asked in an implicit interview task whether various mental state types, as well as pure biological imperatives, continue after death. The results suggest that, regardless of one's explicit reports about personal consciousness after death, those who believe in some form of life after dea…
The Natural Emergence of Reasoning About the Afterlife as a Developmental Regularity
Participants were interviewed about the biological and psychological functioning of a dead agent. In Experiment 1, even 4- to 6-year-olds stated that biological processes ceased at death, although this trend was more apparent among 6- to 8-year-olds. In Experiment 2, 4- to 12-year-olds were asked about psychological functioning. The youngest children were equally likely to state that both cognitive and psychobiological states continued at death, …
Reasoning about dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends
Children's attributions of intentions to an invisible agent
Children ages 3-9 years were informed that an invisible agent (Princess Alice) would help them play a forced-choice game by "telling them, somehow, when they chose the wrong box," whereas a matched control group of children were not given this supernatural prime. On 2 unexpected event trials, an experimenter triggered a simulated unexpected event (i.e., a light turning on/off; a picture falling), and children's behavioral response to these events…
Atheism is only skin deep
Cognitive scientists of religion and evolutionary theorists alike have been increasingly arguing in recent\nyears that religion is "natural" in the sense of being motivated by core, evolved psychological intuitions.\nAtheism, and irreligion more generally, appear to pose problems for the naturalness hypothesis, especially\nconsidering the significant proportion of people in contemporary societies who reject supernatural\nbeliefs. Although Geertz …
The Coevolution of Secrecy and Stigmatization
Evolutionary cyber-psychology
Varieties of Awe in Science Communication
Awe is a valued emotion in science communication and assumes a variety of functions in relation to the cultural mandates of the various spaces where it is represented. Based on a reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with 22 science communication practitioners, we constructed seven themes referencing this emotion’s various sociocultural roles in this space. These included the functions of awe in entertainment, curiosity, admiration, revelatio…
Religious Concepts are Probably Epiphenomena
Religious Concepts are Probably Epiphenomena: A Reply to Pyysiäinen, Boyer, and Barrett J ESSE M. B ERING ¤ It is to the commentators’ great credit that they have managed to cull the conceptual imperfections of my article “The Natural Foundations of Afterlife Beliefs” (Bering 2002a) into a fairly coherent discussion of the “innateness” of representations of dead agents’ minds. In response to their insightful remarks, I will do my best to clarify …
God is not in the Mirror
In response to my paper on possible phylogenetic divergence in the case of theistic percepts, Gallup and Maser argue that an alternative — and more heuristic — approach to studying religious phenomena can be found in neuroanatomical mapping of cognitive functions that seem to play some role in this category of thought. On the one hand, the argument is sound and will probably come to be prescient; cognitive neuroscience should begin to emerge as a…
Theistic Percepts in Other Species
The present theoretical article addresses the empirical question of whether other species, particularly chimpanzees, have the cognitive substrate necessary for experiencing theistic and otherwise non-natural (i.e., non-physical) percepts. The primary representational device presumed to underlie religious cognition was viewed as, in general, the capacity to attribute unobservable causal mechanisms to ostensible output and, in particular, a theory …
Ratcheting' up the scalae naturae
COMMENTARY ‘Ratcheting’ up the scalae naturae ? J ESSE M. B ERING ¤ Michael Tomasello (1999), The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition . Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 254 pp. ISBN 0-674-00070-6. $29.95. During a time when evolutionary psychologists are somewhat over-inclined to place cognition on the operating table and thenceforth carve up the brain into neat “no consciousness necessary” data-driven bundles, Michael Tomasello has done …
Intuitive Conceptions of Dead Agents' Minds
Little is known about how the minds of dead agents are represented. In the current experiment, individuals with different types of explicit afterlife beliefs were asked in an implicit interview task whether various mental state types, as well as pure biological imperatives, continue after death. The results suggest that, regardless of one's explicit reports about personal consciousness after death, those who believe in some form of life after dea…
Religious Concepts are Probably Epiphenomena
Religious Concepts are Probably Epiphenomena: A Reply to Pyysiäinen, Boyer, and Barrett J ESSE M. B ERING ¤ It is to the commentators’ great credit that they have managed to cull the conceptual imperfections of my article “The Natural Foundations of Afterlife Beliefs” (Bering 2002a) into a fairly coherent discussion of the “innateness” of representations of dead agents’ minds. In response to their insightful remarks, I will do my best to clarify …
The Natural Emergence of Reasoning About the Afterlife as a Developmental Regularity
Participants were interviewed about the biological and psychological functioning of a dead agent. In Experiment 1, even 4- to 6-year-olds stated that biological processes ceased at death, although this trend was more apparent among 6- to 8-year-olds. In Experiment 2, 4- to 12-year-olds were asked about psychological functioning. The youngest children were equally likely to state that both cognitive and psychobiological states continued at death, …
"O Lord… You Perceive my Thoughts from Afar"
Across religious belief systems, some supernatural agents are nearly always granted privileged epistemic access into the self's thoughts. In addition, the ethnographic literature supports the claim that, across cultures, supernatural agents are envisioned as (1) incapable of being deceived through overt behaviors; (2) preoccupied with behavior in the moral domain; (3) punitive agents who cause general misfortune to those who transgress and; (4) c…
Primate Psychology
Reasoning about dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends
Hand of God, Mind of Man
The evolution of human cooperation remains a puzzle because cooperation persists even in conditions that rule out mainstream explanations. We present a novel solution that links two recent theories. First, Johnson & Kruger (2004) suggested that ancestral cooperation was promoted because norm violations were deterred by the threat of supernatural punishment. However, this only works if individuals attribute negative life events (or a prospective a…
The folk psychology of souls
The present article examines how people's belief in an afterlife, as well as closely related supernatural beliefs, may open an empirical backdoor to our understanding of the evolution of human social cognition. Recent findings and logic from the cognitive sciences contribute to a novel theory of existential psychology, one that is grounded in the tenets of Darwinian natural selection. Many of the predominant questions of existential psychology st…
Children's attributions of intentions to an invisible agent
Children ages 3-9 years were informed that an invisible agent (Princess Alice) would help them play a forced-choice game by "telling them, somehow, when they chose the wrong box," whereas a matched control group of children were not given this supernatural prime. On 2 unexpected event trials, an experimenter triggered a simulated unexpected event (i.e., a light turning on/off; a picture falling), and children's behavioral response to these events…
Concerns about reputation via gossip promote generous allocations in an economic game
Evolutionary cyber-psychology
The Coevolution of Secrecy and Stigmatization
Atheism is only skin deep
Cognitive scientists of religion and evolutionary theorists alike have been increasingly arguing in recent\nyears that religion is "natural" in the sense of being motivated by core, evolved psychological intuitions.\nAtheism, and irreligion more generally, appear to pose problems for the naturalness hypothesis, especially\nconsidering the significant proportion of people in contemporary societies who reject supernatural\nbeliefs. Although Geertz …
Meant to be”
A large body of previous research has found that people exhibit a cognitive bias to reason teleologically about natural kinds, explaining them in terms of intelligent design and inherent purpose. In the present study, we examined whether people are also cognitively biased to explain naturally occurring events in terms of inherent purpose (i.e., mistakenly attributing intentional design behind naturally caused life events), and if so, how explicit…
Knowledge of Deaths in Hotel Rooms Diminishes Perceived Value and Elicits Guest Aversion
Guest deaths are an inevitable aspect of the hospitality industry. In Study 1, participants read a vignette in which the previous guest died of natural causes, suicide, or homicide. Those who learned of a death (a) saw the room as less valuable, (b) opted to stay in a more basic room in which no death occurred, despite both rooms being offered for free, and (c) anticipated feeling uneasy when imagining an overnight stay. In Study 2, we investigat…
How to Know You’ve Survived Death
Reports of people who have survived death have captured the attention of mainstream audiences. Why do these ideas enjoy persistent and widespread success in contemporary Western culture? Adopting a cognitive approach to the study of afterlife accounts and drawing upon our own research, we argue that mainstream survival narratives are popular because they provide convincing evidence that one has journeyed to another realm. Such accounts are convin…
The construction of awe in science communication
Awe is a frequently represented and commonly experienced emotion in science communication. According to a popular account of this emotion, awe is an innate and universal human affective experience that occurs when a person evaluates a target as vast, forcing a shift in their worldview. This shift is portrayed in science communication as resulting in an enhanced interest in the scientific material at hand. Based on the latest research in affective…
Strategies to Stay Alive
Suicidal behavior constitutes a major global problem. Qualitative research utilizing the first-hand experiences of those who have survived attempts to take their own lives can offer much in the way of understanding how to live well despite ongoing suicidal behavior. Given that suicidal intentions and behaviors occur within the person's subjective construal, the solutions to living-and preferably living well-despite such inclinations must also be …
The “Ghost” in the Lab
Many nonbelievers may engage in supernatural thinking despite their statements to the contrary. Using belief in the afterlife as a test case, we examine, across two studies, the possible discrepancy between what people say they believe and how they reason implicitly. In Study 1, participants completed a mindfulness task during which a light went off unexpectedly. Half had previously been told that a ghost had recently been seen in the same room. …
Varieties of Awe in Science Communication
Awe is a valued emotion in science communication and assumes a variety of functions in relation to the cultural mandates of the various spaces where it is represented. Based on a reflexive thematic analysis of interviews with 22 science communication practitioners, we constructed seven themes referencing this emotion’s various sociocultural roles in this space. These included the functions of awe in entertainment, curiosity, admiration, revelatio…
Examining a domain-specific link between perceived control and conspiracy beliefs
Psychology (22 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Cognition (8 works) · Cognitive psychology (6 works) · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation (6 works) · Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs (6 works) · Philosophy (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works)