The DOI matches its Crossref record; 95 of the 95 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Cognitive biases explain religious belief, paranormal belief, and belief in life’s purpose
Abstract
Cognitive theories of religion have postulated several cognitive biases that predispose human minds towards religious belief. However, to date, these hypotheses have not been tested simultaneously and in relation to each other, using an individual difference approach. We used a path model to assess the extent to which several interacting cognitive tendencies, namely mentalizing, mind body dualism, teleological thinking, and anthropomorphism, as well as cultural exposure to religion, predict belief in God, paranormal beliefs and belief in life's purpose. Our model, based on two independent samples (N=492 and N=920) found that the previously known relationship between mentalizing and belief is mediated by individual differences in dualism, and to a lesser extent by teleological thinking. Anthropomorphism was unrelated to religious belief, but was related to paranormal belief. Cultural exposure to religion (mostly Christianity) was negatively related to anthropomorphism, and was unrelated to any of the other cognitive tendencies. These patterns were robust for both men and women, and across at least two ethnic identifications. The data were most consistent with a path model suggesting that mentalizing comes first, which leads to dualism and teleology, which in turn lead to religious, paranormal, and life's-purpose beliefs. Alternative theoretical models were tested but did not find empirical support.
Overview
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
In the citing paper
“Rather, rates of belief in paranormal and otherwise supramundane but non-religious phenomena such as ghosts, UFOs and other mythical creatures remain as high as ever (Baker and Draper 2010; Persinger 2001; Willard and Norenzayan 2013).”
From Cultural Evolution of Religion, Spirituality and Ritual: Impacts On Human Cooperation (2024) · cites this paper as Willard and Norenzayan 2013
Citations
Cites
(1994) · DigitalGeorgetown (Georgetown University Library) · Cited by 10,542
Amazon's Mechanical Turk: A New Source of Inexpensive, Yet High-Quality, Data?
Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. D. (2011) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/1745691610393980 · Cited by 9,996
EQS : structural equations program manual
Bentler, P. M. (1989) · Medical Entomology and Zoology · Cited by 9,669
DESCARTES' ERROR: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain
Marg, E. (1995) · Optometry and Vision Science · doi:10.1002/j.1538-9235.1995.tb03988.x · Cited by 8,178
Baron-Cohen, S., & Wheelwright, S. (2004) · Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders · doi:10.1023/b:jadd.0000022607.19833.00 · Cited by 4,093
Gray, H. M., Gray, K., & Wegner, D. M. (2007) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.1134475 · Cited by 2,342 · cited 1×
“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).”
Descartes’ Error. Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain. New York (Grosset/Putnam) 1994.
Damasio, A. R. (1994) · Cited by 2,266
Religion explained: the evolutionary origins of religious thought
(2002) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.39-2732a · Cited by 1,935
Yuan, K.-H., & Bentler, P. (2000) · Sociological Methodology · doi:10.1111/0081-1750.00078 · Cited by 1,847
Handbook of the psychology of religion and spirituality
(2006) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.43-5845 · Cited by 1,778
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The cultural evolution of prosocial religions
Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A. F., Gervais, W. M., Willard, A. K., McNamara, R. A., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2016) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x14001356 · Cited by 934
Self-citationMcKay, R., & Whitehouse, H. (2015) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0038455 · Cited by 353
“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.”
BackgroundResultYou’re so lovable: Anthropomorphism and brand love
Rauschnabel, P. A., & Ahuvia, A. (2014) · Journal of Brand Management · doi:10.1057/bm.2014.14 · Cited by 259
Pennycook, G., Ross, R. M., Koehler, D. J., & Fugelsang, J. A. (2016) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0153039 · Cited by 232
“10, [43]), teleological thinking (r = .”
Kim, J., & Im, I. (2022) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2022.107512 · Cited by 233
Metadata
- Authors
- Willard, A. K., & Norenzayan, A.
- Affiliations
- University of British Columbia (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Willard, Aiyana K.
- ORCID
- Willard, Aiyana K.
- Venue
- Cognition
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2013-11
- Volume
- 129
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 379-391
- ISSN
- 0010-0277 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2149140482
- Cited by
- 300
- References
- 94
- Citations by year
- 2026: 16 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 35 · 2020: 37 · 2019: 31 · 2018: 21 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 15 · 2014: 9
- FWCI
- 17.87
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Study and Philosophy of Religion
- Keywords
- cognitive biases, religious beliefs, supernatural beliefs, mentalization, mind-body dualism, teleological thinking, anthropomorphism, Christianity, individual differences, mediation
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Aged, 80 and over, Canada, Cognition, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Models, Psychological, Parapsychology, Religion and Psychology, United States, Young Adult, Theory of Mind
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
