Seeking the supernatural: the Interactive Religious Experience Model
We develop a new model of how human agency-detection capacities and other socio-cognitive biases are involved in forming religious beliefs. Crucially, we distinguish general religious beliefs (such as God exists) from personal religious beliefs that directly refer to the agent holding the belief or...
| Published in: | Religion, brain & behavior |
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| Authors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Routledge
2019
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| In: |
Religion, brain & behavior
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| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Theory of mind
/ The Supernatural
/ Plot
/ Recognizing
/ Religious experience
/ Interactionalism
/ Research method
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| RelBib Classification: | AB Philosophy of religion; criticism of religion; atheism AE Psychology of religion |
| Further subjects: | B
Belief
B indexicals B Religious Experience B Ritual B supernatural agents B Agency Detection B Intuition B Theory of mind |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | We develop a new model of how human agency-detection capacities and other socio-cognitive biases are involved in forming religious beliefs. Crucially, we distinguish general religious beliefs (such as God exists) from personal religious beliefs that directly refer to the agent holding the belief or to her peripersonal time and space (such as God appeared to me last night). On our model, people acquire general religious beliefs mostly from their surrounding culture; however, people use agency-intuitions and other low-level experiences to form personal religious beliefs. We call our model the Interactive Religious Experience Model (IREM). IREM inverts received versions of Hyperactive Agency-Detection Device Theory (HADD Theory): instead of saying that agency-intuitions are major causes of religious belief in general, IREM says that general belief in supernatural agents causes people to seek situations that trigger agency-intuitions and other experiences, since these enable one to form personal beliefs about those agents. In addition to developing this model, we (1) present empirical and conceptual difficulties with received versions of HADD Theory, (2) explain how IREM incorporates philosophical work on indexical belief, (3) relate IREM to existing anthropological and psychological research, and (4) propose future empirical research programs based on IREM. |
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| ISSN: | 2153-5981 |
| Reference: | Kommentar in "Do religious experiences shape religious beliefs or religious concepts? (2019)"
Kommentar in "Simulating supernatural seeking (2019)" Kommentar in "Idolizing the indexical (2019)" Kommentar in "On the nature and future of agency detection and religion (2019)" Kommentar in "Believing and experiencing the supernatural (2019)" Kommentar in "The cultural buck stops somewhere (2019)" Kommentar in "Predicting the supernatural (2019)" |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Religion, brain & behavior
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1080/2153599X.2018.1453529 |