Booth School of Business, 5807 South Woodlawn Avenue, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Dec 22;106(51):21533-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0908374106. Epub 2009 Dec 2.
People often reason egocentrically about others' beliefs, using their own beliefs as an inductive guide. Correlational, experimental, and neuroimaging evidence suggests that people may be even more egocentric when reasoning about a religious agent's beliefs (e.g., God). In both nationally representative and more local samples, people's own beliefs on important social and ethical issues were consistently correlated more strongly with estimates of God's beliefs than with estimates of other people's beliefs (Studies 1-4). Manipulating people's beliefs similarly influenced estimates of God's beliefs but did not as consistently influence estimates of other people's beliefs (Studies 5 and 6). A final neuroimaging study demonstrated a clear convergence in neural activity when reasoning about one's own beliefs and God's beliefs, but clear divergences when reasoning about another person's beliefs (Study 7). In particular, reasoning about God's beliefs activated areas associated with self-referential thinking more so than did reasoning about another person's beliefs. Believers commonly use inferences about God's beliefs as a moral compass, but that compass appears especially dependent on one's own existing beliefs.
人们在推断他人的信仰时，往往会以自我为中心，以自己的信仰作为归纳的指南。相关研究、实验和神经影像学研究的证据表明，当人们推断宗教代理人的信仰（例如上帝）时，他们可能会更加以自我为中心。在全国代表性样本和更局部的样本中，人们对重要社会和伦理问题的信仰与对上帝信仰的估计比与对其他人信仰的估计更为密切相关（研究 1-4）。操纵人们的信仰同样会影响对上帝信仰的估计，但对其他人信仰的估计影响并不一致（研究 5 和 6）。最后一项神经影像学研究表明，在推断自己的信仰和上帝的信仰时，神经活动明显趋同，但在推断另一个人的信仰时则明显不同（研究 7）。具体来说，推断上帝的信仰会激活与自我参照思维相关的区域，比推断另一个人的信仰更为强烈。信徒通常将关于上帝的信仰推断用作道德指南针，但该指南针似乎特别依赖于一个人自己现有的信仰。
