{"title":"Coding, causality, and statistical craft: the emergence and evolutionary drivers of moralistic supernatural punishment remain unresolved","authors":"B. Purzycki, Theiss Bendixen, Aaron D. Lightner","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2022.2065349","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2022.2065349","url":null,"abstract":"The target article from Turchin et al. assesses the relationship between social complexity and moralistic supernatural punishment. In our evaluation of their project, we argue that each step of its workflow -- from data production and theory to modeling and reporting -- makes it impossible to test the hypothesis that its authors claim they are testing. We focus our discussion on three important classes of issues: problems of data, analysis, and causal inference.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"40 1","pages":"207 - 214"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89593256","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}
Irene Cristofori, S. Hoogeveen, D. Rohr, Joseph A. Bulbulia, J. Shaver, R. Sosis, W. Wildman
{"title":"Introducing our new editors","authors":"Irene Cristofori, S. Hoogeveen, D. Rohr, Joseph A. Bulbulia, J. Shaver, R. Sosis, W. Wildman","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2023.2173715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2023.2173715","url":null,"abstract":"Religion, Brain & Behavior is thrilled to announce that we are expanding and diversifying our team. Two new senior editors, Suzanne Hoogeveen and Irene Cristofori, and a new assistant editor, David Rohr, bring a wealth of expertise and experience to our journal. In this special editorial, our three newest team mates introduce themselves. Before they do so, however, we want to take this opportunity to thank Joel Daniels for his many years of extraordinary service to RBB as our tireless and dependable Assistant Editor. Thank you Joel.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"8 1","pages":"1 - 4"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76269537","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":"Commentary on Hearing voices and other matters of mind: What mental abnormalities teach us about religions by Robert McCauley and George Graham","authors":"R. Bentall","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987310","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987310","url":null,"abstract":"As a recent survey of religious artifacts in the British Museum attests (MacGregor, 2018), religions exist in enormous varieties and have been ubiquitous globally and throughout history. This observation has led to the creation of the subdiscipline of psychology focused on religion which, although not as well-established as older subdisciplines such as social, cognitive and developmental psychology, is certainly thriving (Hood et al., 2009). Robert McCauley and George Graham’s book,Hearing voices and other matters of mind: What mental abnormalities teach us about religions, introduces a novel perspective to this field and delivers a thoughtful and stimulating exploration of the borderlines between psychopathology and religious experience and behavior. The authors approach this task within a framework which they describe as ‘ecumenical naturalism’, which stands on three claims. First, they accept the widespread assumption by researchers working on the cognitive science of religion (CSR), that many features of religion are by-products of the mental processes that underpin much of ordinary life. Second, they argue that many religious experiences share features with the experiences of people suffering from psychiatric disorders. Finally, they claim that findings from cognitive science will therefore be informative in understanding features of mental disorders that are also evident in religious experience. Importantly, although they claim that their approach is “free of presumptive ontological commitment or reference to anything supernatural” (p. 214), they say their aim is not to delegitimise or debunk religion, which they see as a natural feature of human life. They contrast this attitude to that taken by some notable previous contributors to what might be called the religion-psychopathology debate (they cite, in particular, Freud’s view that religion is a childish illusion). The core of the book is a series of chapters focusing on four types of mental illness: hearing voices, depression, obsessions and compulsions, and finally autism. In the chapter on hearing voices, they review the research literature showing that auditory-verbal hallucinations (one of the most common experiences reported by patients diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia) are the consequence of a failure of ‘source monitoring’, which leads to the misattribution of mental events, especially inner speech, to a source external or alien to the self. They then argue that “there is no categorical difference, at a subpersonal level, between the mental systems or cognitive dispositions involved in believing that God is speaking to you... . and the systems involved in believing that a secular agent is talking” (p. 75); religious belief simply provides a context in which the voice-hearer may interpret these experiences and thereby come to the conclusion that they are being addressed by God.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"161 1","pages":"424 - 430"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76449664","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":"Continuity and credibility in the Cognitive Science of Religion","authors":"R. Ross, R. McKay","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987308","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987308","url":null,"abstract":"reading Hearing Voices. Consequently, after having benefited from the philosophical rigor McCauley and Graham apply to such a large array of topics in Hearing Voices, I wish to take this opportunity to ask them to explicate the scientific utility of labeling some mental disorders or symptoms as “religious” and, if they find scientific utility in such labeling, to detail whose labeling criteria should be used and why. Such an explication would help once again demonstrate the important contributions of philosophy to not only the intersection of religion and mental illness but to the cognitive science of religion as a whole.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"44 1","pages":"441 - 448"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80716144","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":"Mapping the scientific study of rituals: a bibliometric analysis of research published 2000–2020","authors":"R. Fischer","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1980425","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.1980425","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 This paper presents a bibliometric study and general overview of research on ritual. I searched the Web of Science Core Collection on Nov 22, 2020 for studies published between 2000 and 2020 with the term “ritual*” in the title, keywords or abstract. A data corpus of 16,600 English-language publications was further analysed using publication statistics, citation metrics, co-citation networks and network analyses of keywords. Evolutionary research on religious ritual with an emphasis on signaling was identified as a central area of research with strong impact on the study of ritual overall. Distinct clusters of clinical, neuroscience, developmental and health research using rituals were also identified and these clusters showed high citation metrics. Concerning publication outlets, archaeology journals publish a large number of papers on ritual, but the impact of these publications as measured by citations weakens over time. Changes in research trends suggest a maturation and specialization of ritualistic research over the last 20 years, with greater isolation and disconnectedness of individual research themes. The list of key publications based on contemporary impact metrics and historical co-citation networks can be used to provide a common language and theoretical lens for researchers to facilitate interaction between different disciplines.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"41 1","pages":"382 - 402"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"73166250","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}
Joseph A. Bulbulia, U. Schjoedt, J. Shaver, R. Sosis, W. Wildman
{"title":"Causal inference in regression: advice to authors","authors":"Joseph A. Bulbulia, U. Schjoedt, J. Shaver, R. Sosis, W. Wildman","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.2001259","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.2001259","url":null,"abstract":"The 2021 Nobel prize in economics was awarded to David Card, Joshua Angrist, and Guido Imbens. Card, together with his PhD supervisor the late Alan Krueger, developed empirical methods for investigating how policy interventions affect labor markets. Angrist and Imbens developed methods for identifying causes from real-world complexity. Collectively, this work on causal inference has come to redefine how economists conduct research. A parallel storey for the emergence and growth of causal methods unfolded a quarter-century earlier in the discipline of epidemiology (Hill, 1965). Formal methods for causal inference trace an even longer history, beginning with the work of Sewall Wright on biological development and inheritance (Wright, 1921, 1923, 1934). Most empirical research published in Religion, Brain & Behavior is produced by scientists working in psychology, a field in which methods for causal inference remain poorly developed (see Rohrer, 2018). Here, we offer advice to RBB authors hoping to address causal inference using regression, ANOVA, and structural equation modeling.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"1 1","pages":"353 - 360"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"91004480","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 of philosophy and the scientific utility of “religious” disorders","authors":"Jonathan A. Lanman","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987311","url":null,"abstract":"According to Miller (2003), the field of cognitive science took shape through the combined contributions of scholars in psychology, philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. The sub-field of the Cognitive Science of Religion (CSR), too, has taken shape through the contributions of scholars from a number of disciplines including different branches of psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, history, religious studies, philosophy, biology, computer science, and more. Each discipline brings its own set of perspectives, tools, and evidential base to the scientific study of religion. In Hearing Voices and Other Matters of the Mind: What Mental Abnormalities Can Teach Us About Religions, Robert N. McCauley and George Graham (2020) demonstrate the benefits that philosophers bring to our growing field. Their precision and rigor in evaluating arguments, evidence, and metatheoretical assumptions shines through in both their overall goals for the volume and the particular topics they use to illustrate their perspective. The field is better for it. My wish for their monograph, and what I will ask of the authors below, is for them to utilize that precision and rigor a bit more on an issue I still found unclear in the text: does labeling some symptom or disorder as “religious” have any scientific utility in better understanding its causes or effects? InHearing Voices, McCauley and Graham aim to kickstart the systematic interdisciplinary investigation into “forms of religious and theistic cognition that either strongly resemble or are directly associated with cases of mental illness or disorder” by exploring “why religions around the world and throughout human history have hit upon multiple means for engendering experiences with many of the same features as those associated with various mental disorders” (p. 5) and, by doing so, “illustrate how the scientific field of psychopathology can serve as a robust disciplinary aid to the cognitive science of religion” (p. xiii). Throughout the text, they defend an interdisciplinary framework they call “ecumenical naturalism” or EN and a “byproduct” account of the influence of cognitive mechanisms on the religious phenomena discussed. EN, they tell us, entails bringing the “same theories, findings, and research tools to the study of cognition whether it is normal, pathological, or religious” (p.xiv). The framework is ecumenical “in its attention to normal and abnormal forms of human religiosity” and naturalistic “in its commitment to the science of cognition and the study of mental illness” (p. 211). The byproduct theory, as they relate, holds that the cognitive systems at work in religious contexts are “garden variety” cognitive systems and that their existence owes nothing to religion or each other. It also holds that “religious representations tend to evolve in directions that are consonant with the content biases of human minds” (p. 17). With the framework of ecumenical naturali","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"97 1","pages":"437 - 441"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86877008","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":"“Hearing voices and other matters of mind” raises important issues in the cognitive science of religion, but also in the psychology and philosophy of religion","authors":"J. V. Van Slyke","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987309","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987309","url":null,"abstract":"Alderson-Day, B., Bernini, M., & Fernyhough, C. (2017). Uncharted features and dynamics of reading: Voices, characters, and crossing of experiences. Consciousness and Cognition, 49, 98–109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog. 2017.01.003 Bechtel, W. (2009). Looking down, around, and up: Mechanistic explanation in psychology. Philosophical Psychology, 22(5), 543–564. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515080903238948 Butz, M. V., & Kutter, E. F. (2017).How the mind comes into being: Introducing cognitive science from a functional and computational perspective (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. Craver, C. F. (2015). Levels. In T. Metzinger & J. M. Windt (Eds.), Open mind. MIND Group. https://doi.org/10. 15502/9783958570498 Deeley, Q., Oakley, D. A., Walsh, E., Bell, V., Mehta, M. A., & Halligan, P. W. (2014). Modelling psychiatric and cultural possession phenomena with suggestion and fMRI. Cortex, 53, 107–119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2014. 01.004 Garratt, P. (2014, August 22). Hearing voices allowed Charles Dickens to create extraordinary fictional worlds. The Guardian. Glennan, S., & Illari, P. (Eds.). (2020). Routledge handbook of mechanisms and mechanical philosophy. Taylor and Francis. Henrich, J. P. (2016). The secret of our success: How culture is driving human evolution, domesticating our species, and making us smarter. Princeton University Press. Hohwy, J., Hebblewhite, A., & Drummond, T. (2020). Events, event prediction, and predictive processing. Topics in Cognitive Science, tops.12491. https://doi.org/10.1111/tops.12491 Luhrmann, T. M. (2005). The art of hearing God: Absorption, dissociation, and contemporary American spirituality. Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, 5(2), 133–157. https://doi.org/10.1353/scs.2006.0014 Luhrmann, T. M., Nusbaum, H., & Thisted, R. (2010). The absorption hypothesis: Learning to hear god in evangelical christianity. American Anthropologist, 112(1), 66–78. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1433.2009.01197.x Luhrmann, T. M., Nusbaum, H., & Thisted, R. (2013). “Lord, teach us to pray”: Prayer practice affects cognitive processing. Journal of Cognition and Culture, 13(1-2), 159–177. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685373-12342090 Radvansky, G., & Zacks, J. M. (2011). Event perception.Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science, 2(6), 608– 620. https://doi.org/10.1002/wcs.133 Taves, A. (2016). Revelatory events: Three case studies of the emergence of new spiritual paths (1st ed.). Princeton University Press. Taves, A., & Asprem, E. (2017). Experience as event: Event cognition and the study of (religious) experiences. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 7(1), 43–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2016.1150327 Whitehouse, H, & Lanman, J. A. (2014). The ties that bind us: Ritual, fusion, and identification. Current Anthropology, 55(6), 674–683. https://doi.org/10.1086/678698 Walsh, E., Oakley, D. A., Halligan, P. W., Mehta, M. A., & Deeley, Q. (2015). The functional anatomy and connectivity of thought insertion an","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"81 1","pages":"451 - 455"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87152408","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":"Event cognition (not ecumenical naturalism) integrates individual and cultural differences","authors":"Ann Taves","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987306","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.1987306","url":null,"abstract":"org/10.31234/osf.io/ksfvq. Open Science Collaboration. (2015). Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science. Science, 349(6251), aac4716. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4716 Quintana, D. S. (2015). From pre-registration to publication: A non-technical primer for conducting a meta-analysis to synthesize correlational data. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01549 Reddish, P., Tok, P., & Kundt, R. (2016). Religious cognition and behaviour in autism: The role of mentalizing. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 26(2), 95–112. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508619.2014.1003518 Shariff, A. F., Willard, A. K., Andersen, T., & Norenzayan, A. (2016). Religious priming: A meta-analysis with a focus on prosociality. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20(1), 27–48. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1088868314568811 Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2011). False-positive psychology: Undisclosed flexibility in data collection and analysis allows presenting anything as significant. Psychological Science, 22(11), 1359–1366. https://doi. org/10.1177/0956797611417632 Simmons, J. P., Nelson, L. D., & Simonsohn, U. (2018). False-positive citations. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(2), 255–259. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617698146 van Elk, M., Matzke, D., Gronau, Q. F., Guana, M., Vandekerckhove, J., & Wagenmakers, E. J. (2015). Meta-analyses are no substitute for registered replications: A skeptical perspective on religious priming. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 1–7. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01365 van Os, J., Linscott, R. J., Myin-Germeys, I., Delespaul, P., & Krabbendam, L. (2009). A systematic review and metaanalysis of the psychosis continuum: Evidence for a psychosis proneness–persistence–impairment model of psychotic disorder. Psychological Medicine, 39(02), 179–195. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291708003814 Watanabe, S., & Laurent, S. M. (2021). Past its prime? A methodological overview and critique of religious priming research in social psychology. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 6(1-2), 31–55. https://doi.org/10.1558/ jcsr.38411","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"35 1","pages":"448 - 451"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74082424","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":"Impact of religiosity and supernatural belief on individuals’ visitation to religious healers","authors":"Md. Rakib Hossain","doi":"10.1080/2153599X.2021.1980426","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2021.1980426","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of religiosity and supernatural beliefs on people's visitation to religious healers among the Muslim population using Pew World Muslim Dataset 2012 (N = 31,354). The result of multilevel level logistic regression reveals that religious Muslims are more likely to visit religious healers than non-religious Muslims. Individuals who believe in the supernatural (i.e., evil eye, witchcraft) and that making offerings to them is acceptable in Islam are more likely to visit religious healers than others. Also, a moderation effect indicates these same people are more likely to visit religious healers than religious individuals who do not believe in such supernatural forces. Individuals from lower economic strata and rural areas, females, and non-educated people are more likely to visit religious healers than others. This is the first quantitative study on determinants of people's visitation to religious healers. Limitations and practical implications of the study are also discussed.","PeriodicalId":45959,"journal":{"name":"Religion Brain & Behavior","volume":"61 1","pages":"371 - 381"},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72484570","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}