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Theories of God: Explanatory coherence in religious cognition.

ABSTRACT: Representations of God in art, literature, and discourse range from the highly anthropomorphic to the highly abstract. The present study explored whether people who endorse anthropomorphic God concepts hold different religious beliefs and engage in different religious practices than those who endorse abstract concepts. Adults of various religious affiliations (n = 275) completed a questionnaire that probed their beliefs about God, angels, Satan, Heaven, Hell, cosmogenesis, anthropogenesis, human suffering, and human misdeeds, as well as their experiences regarding prayer, worship, and religious development. Responses to the questionnaire were analyzed by how strongly participants anthropomorphized God in a property-attribution task. Overall, the more participants anthropomorphized God, the more concretely they interpreted religious ideas, importing their understanding of human affairs into their understanding of divine affairs. These findings suggest not only that individuals vary greatly in how they interpret the same religious ideas but also that those interpretations cohere along a concrete-to-abstract dimension, anchored on the concrete side by our everyday notions of people.

SUBMITTER: Shtulman A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6306263 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Theories of God: Explanatory coherence in religious cognition.

Shtulman Andrew A Rattner Max M

PloS one 20181226 12

Representations of God in art, literature, and discourse range from the highly anthropomorphic to the highly abstract. The present study explored whether people who endorse anthropomorphic God concepts hold different religious beliefs and engage in different religious practices than those who endorse abstract concepts. Adults of various religious affiliations (n = 275) completed a questionnaire that probed their beliefs about God, angels, Satan, Heaven, Hell, cosmogenesis, anthropogenesis, human ...[more]

PMID: 30586433

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Project description:INTRODUCTION:The End-of-Life Namaste Care Program for People with Dementia, challenges the misconception that people with dementia are a 'shell'; it provides a holistic approach using the five senses, which can provide positive ways of communicating and emotional responses. It is proposed Namaste Care can improve communication and the relationships families and friends have with the person with dementia. Previously used in care homes, this study is the first to explore the pioneering use of Namaste Care in people's own homes. OBJECTIVE:To develop initial programme theories detailing if, how and under which circumstances Namaste Care works when implemented at home. DESIGN:A qualitative realist approach following the RAMESES II guidelines was employed to understand not only whether Namaste Care has positive outcomes, but also how these are generated, for whom they happen and in which circumstances. SETTING:A hospice in the North East of England, operating in the community, through volunteers. PARTICIPANTS:Programme theories were developed from three focus groups with volunteers implementing Namaste Care (n=8; n=8; n=11) and eight interviews with family carers (n=8). RESULTS:Four refined explanatory theories are presented: increasing engagement, respite for family carers, importance of matched volunteers and increasing social interaction. It was identified that while Namaste Care achieved some of the same goals in the home setting as it does in the care home setting, it could also function in a different way that promoted socialisation. CONCLUSIONS:Namaste Care provides holistic and personalised care to people with both moderate and advanced dementia, improving engagement and reducing social isolation. In the present study carers often chose to use Namaste Care sessions as respite. This was often linked to their frustration of the unavoidable dominance of task-focussed care in daily life. Individualised Namaste Care activities thus led to positive outcomes for both those with dementia and their carers.

Project description:Does religion promote prosocial behaviour? Despite numerous publications that seem to answer this question affirmatively, divergent results from recent meta-analyses and pre-registered replication efforts suggest that the issue is not yet settled. Uncertainty lingers around (i) whether the effects of religious cognition on prosocial behaviour were obtained through implicit cognitive processes, explicit cognitive processes or both and (ii) whether religious cognition increases generosity only among people disinclined to share with anonymous strangers. Here, we report two experiments designed to address these concerns. In Experiment 1, we sought to replicate Shariff and Norenzayan's demonstration of the effects of implicit religious priming on Dictator Game transfers to anonymous strangers; unlike Shariff and Norenzayan, however, we used an online environment where anonymity was virtually assured. In Experiment 2, we introduced a 'taking' option to allow greater expression of baseline selfishness. In both experiments, we sought to activate religious cognition implicitly and explicitly, and we investigated the possibility that religious priming depends on the extent to which subjects view God as a punishing, authoritarian figure. Results indicated that in both experiments, religious subjects transferred more money on average than did non-religious subjects. Bayesian analyses supported the null hypothesis that implicit religious priming did not increase Dictator Game transfers in either experiment, even among religious subjects. Collectively, the two experiments furnished support for a small but reliable effect of explicit priming, though among religious subjects only. Neither experiment supported the hypothesis that the effect of religious priming depends on viewing God as a punishing figure. Finally, in a meta-analysis of relevant studies, we found that the overall effect of implicit religious priming on Dictator Game transfers was small and did not statistically differ from zero.

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Theories of God: Explanatory coherence in religious cognition.

Publications

Theories of God: Explanatory coherence in religious cognition.

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