{"title":"Autonomous neural network activation during religious worship experiences using heart rate variability measurements","authors":"Yoshija Walter, Andreas Altorfer","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2217238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2217238","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACTPrevious studies have suggested that religious experiences in worship demand an attentional control that facilitates the desired state of mind, and that there is a systemic activation of a person’s peripheral physiology at play. The present validation study hypothesized that the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is activated during the experience. For this, 60 participants took part in an experiment with some religious and secular conditions where they worshipped God and indicated how strongly they sensed the presence of God. Electrocardiogram (ECG) measurements were taken to analyze the activity of the autonomous nervous network (ANS) through the heart rate variability (HRV) and to compare it to the religious experience. Our results show that there appears to be a recruitment of the SNS, confirming our working hypothesis. However, there is a negative association of Baevsky’s stress index (SI) with the experience, suggesting that the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) is co-recruited, although to a lesser degree.KEYWORDS: Religionworshipreligious experienceheart rate variabilityHRVmusic AcknowledgmentsOur main appreciation goes out to all the participants who have taken part in this study. Without them, such a research project touching on a very intimate human experience could not have happened.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1 This study makes no claim about the existence or non-existence of God or other divine, spiritual, or supernatural entities. The language that is used here to denote such ideas are purely employed as a reference to the mental concepts from the emic perspectives of the believers recruited for the current study. 2 The responsible Swiss ethics committee is the one located in the Canton of Bern, Switzerland, meaning that the approval was provided by the Cantonal Bernese Ethics Committee (KEK Bern). Project ID number: 2021-00022.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136295441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The role of religion in adolescent mental health: faith as a moderator of the relationship between distrust and depression","authors":"Dimitris I. Tsomokos, Robin I. M. Dunbar","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2248230","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2248230","url":null,"abstract":"It has recently been shown that interpersonal distrust predicts depressive symptoms in middle adolescence, and this finding has been interpreted in light of Social Safety Theory, which views distrust as an index of social threat. Here we hypothesize that religiousness provides social safety and may counteract the sense of social threat indexed by distrust. Religiousness should therefore act as a moderator between interpersonal distrust and depression. Using a nationally representative birth cohort from the UK, we provide evidence in favor of this hypothesis, even after controlling for stratum disadvantage and socioeconomic characteristics, sex, ethnicity, and multiple confounders on the level of the individual (BMI, chronic illness, cognitive ability, risk-taking, experiencing bullying, dietary habits, chronotype, physical activity and screen time), family context (frequency of eating meals together, maternal mental health), and neighborhood ecology (NO2 levels of air pollution).","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135834647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Steps towards a more holistic, dynamic and integrative approach to the evolution of religious systems","authors":"Agustín Fuentes","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234446","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234446","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 and along with Candace Alcorta and various other colleagues in previous publications.2 See Fuentes, Citation2019 chapters 3 and 4 and Kissel and Fuentes (Citation2018).3 http://www.pewforum.org/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/4 Here ‘‘imagination’’ reflects the ability to cognitively derive meaning and construct scenarios, ideas, and perceptions that can involve representations or manipulations of material items, social experiences, sensory experiences, and information passed on to an individual by others, but in these cognitive constructions neither spatial nor temporal nor experiential contact with the aforementioned facets of the items used needs to happen (or to have happened).","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135458546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religion evolving: applying system theory to a case of blood libel","authors":"Ariel Glucklich","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234437","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234437","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135405285","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religion without scare quotes: cognitive science of religion and the humanities","authors":"Deane Galbraith","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234441","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234441","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135458077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A systems theory of religion","authors":"Jordan Kiper","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234454","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234454","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135199862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Challenges in modeling local manifestations of a global template","authors":"Martin Lang","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234445","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234445","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 Of course, the theory is much more nuanced. For instance, the aspects of supernatural agents are not dichotomous but rather continuous and there might be different selection pressures on belief in moralizing gods, as discussed in Purzycki and Sosis’ book and their further writings (Bendixen & Purzycki, Citation2020; Purzycki, Willard, et al., Citation2022).2 For example, we may posit that the frequency of costly signals facilitating cooperation co-varies with exogenous socioecological pressures (Sosis et al., Citation2007). However, costly signals come in many forms (Barker et al., Citation2019; Lang et al., Citation2022), and these forms may be non-randomly distributed across socioecologies (Šaffa et al., Citation2022). While some religious systems may react to an exogenous threat with an increased frequency of traditional permanent markers (e.g., scarification), other systems may react with an increased frequency of traditional costly ritual performances that involve pain but no permanent markers. While responding to the same socio-ecological challenge, the systems are path-dependent and their response will have different down-stream consequences.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135199557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Scripture’s systemic imagination","authors":"William S. Green, Alan J. Avery-Peck","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234452","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234452","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135244655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Religious coalitions and competition among complex adaptive systems","authors":"Denise Laya Mercado, Lee Cronk","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234444","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234444","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135244594","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On the benefits and ambiguities of “religious systems”","authors":"Jonathan A. Lanman","doi":"10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234448","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599x.2023.2234448","url":null,"abstract":"Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by John Templeton Foundation: [Grant Number 61928].","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135199091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}