Heiphetz Larisa, Lane Jonathan D, Waytz Adam, Young Liane L
Department of Psychology, Boston College.
Peabody College of Education and Human Development, Vanderbilt University.
Cogn Sci. 2016 Jan;40(1):121-44. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12232. Epub 2015 Mar 23.
For centuries, humans have contemplated the minds of gods. Research on religious cognition is spread across sub-disciplines, making it difficult to gain a complete understanding of how people reason about gods' minds. We integrate approaches from cognitive, developmental, and social psychology and neuroscience to illuminate the origins of religious cognition. First, we show that although adults explicitly discriminate supernatural minds from human minds, their implicit responses reveal far less discrimination. Next, we demonstrate that children's religious cognition often matches adults' implicit responses, revealing anthropomorphic notions of God's mind. Together, data from children and adults suggest the intuitive nature of perceiving God's mind as human-like. We then propose three complementary explanations for why anthropomorphism persists in adulthood, suggesting that anthropomorphism may be (a) an instance of the anchoring and adjustment heuristic; (b) a reflection of early testimony; and/or (c) an evolutionary byproduct.
几个世纪以来，人类一直在思考神灵的思想。对宗教认知的研究分散在各个子学科中，这使得全面了解人们如何思考神灵的思想变得困难。我们整合了认知心理学、发展心理学、社会心理学和神经科学的方法，以阐明宗教认知的起源。首先，我们表明，尽管成年人明确区分超自然思维和人类思维，但他们的隐性反应显示出的区分要少得多。接下来，我们证明儿童的宗教认知通常与成年人的隐性反应相匹配，揭示了对上帝思想的拟人化观念。儿童和成年人的数据共同表明，将上帝的思想感知为类人的这种直觉本质。然后，我们针对拟人化在成年期持续存在的原因提出了三种互补的解释，表明拟人化可能是：(a) 锚定与调整启发式的一个实例；(b) 早期证言的一种反映；和/或 (c) 一种进化副产品。
