When Perceiving the Supernatural Changes the Natural
Religion and Agency Detection
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12823159 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christine Ma‐kellam (0000-0002-5468-5514, University of La Verne, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 3-4 |
| Pages | 337-343 |
| Publication date | 2015-08-26 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Cognition and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1567-7095 • E-ISSN: 1568-5373 |
| Publisher | Brill (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15685373-12342154 |
| OpenAlex | W1249058759 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 15 |
How does perceiving supernatural agents shape perceptions of natural agents? Despite the ongoing debate on whether supernatural attributions are functionless spillover from a hyperactive agency detector versus more evolved mechanisms that served key adaptive functions for ancestral humans, both accounts concede that one critical, defining quality of religion is that it superimposes intentional agency on natural events. Across two studies, the relationship between religious beliefs and perceptions of both agency and experience for a diverse array of agents were assessed – including ordinary individuals, supernatural beings, villains, martyrs, and celebrities. Across studies, naturalistically-occurring and experimentally-primed religious beliefs facilitated heightened perceptions of agency, but not experience, across both supernatural and natural agents. Thus, religious beliefs promote greater sensitivity to agency more generally. Implications for how this link reconciles the opposing notions of religion as an accidental by-product of agency detection vs. evolved adaptation are discussed
Agency (philosophy · Attribution · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Metaphysics · Natural (archaeology · Perception · Philosophy of mind · Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment · Social Psychology
Faces in the Clouds
Religion's evolutionary landscape
Blaming God for Our Pain
Religion in the Face of Uncertainty
Creating Social Connection Through Inferential Reproduction
Religion as Attachment
The Origin and Evolution of Religious Prosociality
Agency Detection in God Concepts
Mean Gods Make Good People
For God (or) country
A Terror Management Analysis of the Psychological Functions of Religion
Religiosity as Identity
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2018 - 2018 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |