Cognitive biases explain religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in life’s purpose

“He is a mega-mind without the frailty of a human body and without basic human needs, like hunger, or feelings (Gray et al., 2007).”

“Recent evidence that acceptance of teleological explanations is related to belief in God, as well as to belief in Nature as a powerful “being” (Kelemen et al., 2013; see also Willard & Norenzayan, 2013), is consistent with this suggestion.”

“10, [43]), teleological thinking (r = .”

“…studies have repeatedly shown that this determinant is an important predictor of perceived anthropomorphism (Caruso, Waytz, & Epley, 2010; Tam, 2014; Waytz et al., 2014; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013), IS studies on anthropomorphism so far have disregarded dispositional anthropomorphism’s role.”

“Willard and Norenzayan (2013), for instance, found no relationship between the percentage of religious adherents in an individual’s community and their levels of paranormal belief.”

“Instead, porosity and absorption may be part of the scaffolding on which religions build (41) — e.g., by offering causal models of how God ’ s voice can be heard in the mind and of how demons feed on jealous feelings, or by inviting people to immerse themselves in their inner lives through prayer…”

“Recently, however, several scholars have brought up that these beliefs are also a type of supernatural belief (Bering, 2006, 2011; Svedholm, Lindeman, & Lipsanen, 2010; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“…God was measured with a three-question scale (I believe in God; I believe in a divine being who is involved in my life; There is no god or higher power in the universe; α = 0.71; see Willard & Norenzayan, 2013). larization and religious belief in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Evohav.2017.01.002”

“However, since previous samples also consisted of highly educated students [16,17] this characteristic of our sample seems unlikely to explain any of the differences between our and previous studies.”

“Many supernatural beliefs come easily to people, perhaps because they are supported by a variety of core intuitive processes (e.g., Atran & Norenzayan, 2004; Bloom, 2007; Gervais, 2013; McCauley, 2011; Norenzayan & Gervais, 2013; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Incidentally, it is this deep intuitiveness that researchers also use to explain why religious ideas are ubiquitous (e.g., Barrett, 2004; Bering, 2011; Bloom, 2007; Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012; Guthrie, 1993; Kelemen, 2004; Shenhav, Rand, & Greene, 2012; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“These biases are rooted in, or extensions of, Theory of Mind (ToM) (see Lindeman, SvedholmHäkkinen, & Lipsanen, 2015; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“…findings appear in the literature about the relation between agency detection and supernatural beliefs, with some studies showing a positive relation (e.g., Norenzayan et al., 2012; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013) and other studies showing the absence of a relation (Maij, van Harreveld, et al., 2017).”

“For example, belief in Karma may be predicted by the same individual differences that have been found (in some samples) to predict belief in God (e.g., mentalizing, dualism, and intuitive thinking, Pennycook et al., 2016; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Dualism is associated with belief in God, karma, Paranormal beliefs, and afterlife beliefs (Riekki et al., 2013; White et al., 2021; Willard and Norenzayan, 2013; Willard et al., 2020).”

“As discussed above, previous studies have shown that individual differences in religious and paranormal beliefs are associated with differential agency-detection biases (Barnes & Gibson, 2013; Petrican & Burris, 2012; Riekki et al., 2013; van Elk, 2013; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“It presents a high level of overall internal consistency, and has proven good construct validity (Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“…for individual differences in mentalizing (eg., see Baron-Cohen (2009) for discussion of sex differences; see Bernstein, Thornton, & Sommerville (2011) for discussion of age-related differences; and see Willard & Norenzayan, 2013 for a discussion of cultural differences in a comparable sample).”

“…for religiosity is the ability to understand other people’s minds, or mentalizing (Banerjee & Bloom, 2014; Barrett, 2000; Boyer, 2003; Gervais, 2013; Kelemen, 2004; Pyysiäinen & Hauser, 2010; Schaap-Jonker, Sizoo, van Schothorst-van Roekel, & Corveleyn, 2013; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Examining Cognitive Biases and Religious Beliefs (Willard and Norenzayan 2013).”

“Additionally, research should examine whether cognitive biases are related to religious beliefs in children, as Willard and Norenzayan (2013) have found with adults.”

“…utilized in the present study (Banerjee & Bloom, 2014; Davis, Juhl, & Routledge, 2011; Kelemen & Rosset, 2009; Kelemen et al., 2013; Mills & Frowley, 2015; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013), Western participants who were otherwise demographically similar to the present sample (e.g., university Figure 1.”

“Recently, a number of studies have found an inverse relationship between analytic thinking and religious disbelief (Gervais and Norenzayan, 2012; Norenzayan et al., 2012; Willard and Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Considering the protean contents of supernatural beliefs, it would be tempting to assume that they derive from a multifaceted set of cognitive processes (Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Empathy measures are sometimes conflated with measures of mentalizing (e.g. Willard & Norenzayan, 2013) but they typically assess only an individual's self-report of the tendency to engage in thinking about another's feelings and, unlike ToMmeasures, do not assess accuracy in reading other kinds of…”

“In particular, both scientific and religious beliefs are shaped by intuitive theories and by common cognitive biases, including tendencies to essentialize and to interpret behavior as purposeful (e.g., Shtulman, 2015; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Finally, in patients on the autistic spectrum, they found that their mentalizing deficits were associated with reduced belief in God [17,32].”

“Religious belief and religious priming are orthogonal constructs: religious belief reflects one’s internal belief about God, whereas religious priming momentarily activates religious thoughts in an individual’s mind that reveal nothing about their belief (Shariff et al. 2016).”

“We suspect, then, that more sensitive measures would reveal some relation between teleological thought and religious belief among adults (see also Willard & Norenzayan, 2013), and potentially also among children.”

“…that religious beliefs are related to cognitive biases such as dualism, overmentalizing, and other ontological confusions (Banerjee & Bloom, 2014; Demertzi et al., 2009; Lindeman, Svedholm-Häkkinen, & Lipsanen, 2015; Pennycook, Cheyne, Barr, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2015; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“With reference to the studies on mind-perception (Gervais 2013; Willard and Norenzayan 2013), this can be interpreted to mean that emotionally intelligent individuals may also present a high level of mentalizing ability, and that, as a result, they are capable of genuinely involving themselves in…”

“Similarly, it is presumed that biases of overattribution of agency or purpose, which both serve their own evolutionary function, also facilitate the emergence of religious beliefs (Bloom, 2007; Kelemen, 2004; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Limitations and future research directions Research has shown that context and culture affect mental models (Willard and Norenzayan 2013).”

“Further work shows that paranormal beliefs positively correlated with biases towards: anthropomorphism, dualism, teleology, and mentalising, but were not predicted by mentalising [15].”

“…state reasoning to a wide variety of non-human, non-mentalistic, and even inanimate phenomena to create an assortment of religious and other supernatural beliefs (Guthrie, 1993; Heiphetz, Lane, Waytz, & Young, 2015; Waytz, Epley, & Cacioppo, 2010; Waytz et al., 2010; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“…such as beliefs, desires, and intentions even to stars, energy, and other physical and biological phenomena (Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007; Lindeman & Saher, 2007; Norenzayan, Hansen, & Cady, 2008; Riekki, Lindeman, & Lipsanen, 2013; Svedholm, Lindeman, & Lipsanen, 2010; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“First, anthropomorphism of animals, technology, and inanimate nature is independent from the anthropomorphism of supernatural (or spiritual) entities (Waytz et al., 2010a, Study 1; Willard and Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Of particular relevance to this article, Willard and Norenzayan (2013; henceforth W&N) ran path models connecting mentalizing tendencies to religious, paranormal, and life’s purpose beliefs through these three cognitive biases—mind–body dualism, teleology, and anthropomorphism.”

“Other research found a positive association between belief in dualism and teleological reasoning, belief in god, belief in the paranormal, and self-reported purpose in life (Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“In Study 2, we added the measure of a general belief in God or higher power developed by Willard and Norenzayan (2013).”

“Further, belief in supernatural beings seem rooted in dualism, as believers typically construe them as agents lacking a body (Bloom, 2007, 2012; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“They can also be associated with religious belief, although the relationship may be relatively weak (Evans, 2001; Kelemen, 2004; Kelemen & DiYanni, 2005; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“…have argued that religious belief is a by-product, or side effect, of intuitive cognitive mechanisms predisposing humans to view and understand the world in ways conducive to belief in supernatural agents (Barrett, 2004; Baumard & Boyer, 2013; Bloom, 2007; Boyer, 2008; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“A number of scholars have argued that humans are naturally religious as a result of cognitive capacities that facilitate mentalizing the internal states and intentions of others (Atran 2002; Barrett 2000; Bloom 2007; Boyer 2001; Willard and Norenzayan 2013).”

“Belief in karma, gods, and immanent justice may all be manifestations of a general motive for justice or fairness (Banerjee & Bloom, 2014; Baumard & Boyer, 2013), or a tendency to ascribe purpose to life events and natural phenomena (i.e., teleological thinking; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“…people reason about the non-social world, including how we think about events that unfold in our lives (Banerjee & Bloom, 2013, 2014, 2015; Bering, 2006, 2011; Heywood & Bering, 2014; Lindeman, Svedholm-H€akkinen & Lipsanen, 2015; Svedholm, Lindeman & Lipsanen, 2010; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Some researchers argue that it captures “mentalizing tendencies” (Willard & Norenzayan, 2013), while others suggest that it is “sensitive to people's accuracy in deciphering others' mental states” (Banerjee & Bloom, 2014, p. 288).”

“…between mind, religious beliefs, and ritual without any obvious concern for or hint of romanticizing religion's social dimensions (e.g. Hornbeck and Barrett 2013; Kapogiannis et al. 2009; Legare and Souza 2012 Rossano 2009; Schjoedt et al. 2013; Wigger et al. 2013; Willard and Norenzayan 2013).”

“The RME was used to assess participants’ ability to recognize emotions, which has been linked to empathizing and belief in God (Norenzayan, Gervais, & Trzesniewski, 2012; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Mentalizing is sometimes viewed as incorporating all other tendencies (Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“Singleheaded arrows represent regressions, and double-headed arrows represent covariances. particular (Gervais & Najle, 2015; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”

“This suggests that uncontrollability begets the intentional stance because it suggests agency (Kelemen et al., 2013; Kelemen & Rosset, 2009; Liquin & Lombrozo, 2018; Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).”