Highly religious participants recruit areas of social cognition in personal prayer
Open accessAbstract
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how performing formalized and improvised forms of praying changed the evoked BOLD response in a group of Danish Christians. Distinct from formalized praying and secular controls, improvised praying activated a strong response in the temporopolar region, the medial prefrontal cortex, the temporo-parietal junction and precuneus. This finding supports our hypothesis that religious subjects, who consider their God to be 'real' and capable of reciprocating requests, recruit areas of social cognition when they pray. We argue that praying to God is an intersubjective experience comparable to 'normal' interpersonal interaction.
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Religious thinking and behaviours are variable both within and across populations.
“It has been observed that religious thinking and behaviours are variable both within and across populations [72], [73].”
From Faith after an Earthquake: A Longitudinal Study of Religion and Perceived Health before and after the 2011 Christchurch New Zealand Earthquake (2012) · cites this paper as [73]
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“It has been observed that religious thinking and behaviours are variable both within and across populations [72,73].”
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McNamara, R. A., Senanayake, R., Willard, A. K., & Henrich, J. (2021) · Evolutionary Human Sciences · doi:10.1017/ehs.2021.1 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
- Authors
- Schjoedt, U., Stødkilde-Jørgensen, H., Geertz, A. W., & Roepstorff, A.
- Affiliations
- Aarhus University (DK)
- Department of the Study of Religion, 2MR-Research Centre, 3Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience and 4Department of Social Anthropology, University of Aarhus, Denmark
- Venue
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2009-02-25
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 199-207
- ISSN
- 1749-5016 (ISSN-L)
- 1749-5024
- PMC
- PMC2686228
- OpenAlex
- W2108021830
- Cited by
- 305
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 23 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 30 · 2019: 41 · 2018: 10 · 2017: 17 · 2016: 16 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 17 · 2013: 15 · 2012: 15
- FWCI
- 15.90
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Aarhus Universitet
- Aarhus Universitetshospital
- National Research Foundation
- Danmarks Grundforskningsfond
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Study and Philosophy of Religion
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Media, Religion, Digital Communication
- Keywords
- prayer, religious experience, social cognition, medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, precuneus, intersubjectivity, interpersonal interaction
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Brain, Brain Mapping, Cognition, Female, Humans, Image Processing, Computer-Assisted, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Oxygen, Reaction Time, Religion, Social Perception, Young Adult
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