Järnefelt Elisa, Canfield Caitlin F, Kelemen Deborah
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 64 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA 02215, United States; Department of World Cultures, Study of Religions, University of Helsinki, Unioninkatu 38 E, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland.
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University, 64 Cummington Mall, Boston, MA 02215, United States.
Cognition. 2015 Jul;140:72-88. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.02.005. Epub 2015 Apr 13.
Do non-religious adults - despite their explicit disavowal of religious beliefs - have a tacit tendency to view nature as purposefully created by some being? This question was explored in three online studies using a speeded judgment procedure, which assessed disbelievers in two different Western cultures (United States and Finland). Despite strong performance on control trials, across all three studies non-religious individuals displayed a default bias to increasingly judge pictures of natural phenomena as "purposefully made by some being" under processing constraints. Personal beliefs in the supernatural agency of nature ("Gaia beliefs") consistently predicted this tendency. However, beliefs in nature as purposefully made by some being persisted even when such secular agency beliefs were controlled. These results suggest that the tendency to view nature as designed is rooted in evolved cognitive biases as well as cultural socialization.
尽管非宗教成年人明确否认宗教信仰，但他们是否有一种默认倾向，即把自然看作是由某种存在有意创造的？这个问题在三项在线研究中通过快速判断程序进行了探讨，该程序评估了来自两种不同西方文化（美国和芬兰）的不信教者。尽管在对照试验中表现出色，但在所有三项研究中，非宗教个体在处理限制下都表现出一种默认偏见，即越来越倾向于将自然现象的图片判断为“由某种存在有意制造”。对自然超自然力量的个人信仰（“盖亚信仰”）始终能预测这种倾向。然而，即使控制了这种世俗力量信仰，将自然看作是由某种存在有意制造的信念仍然存在。这些结果表明，将自然视为有设计的倾向既源于进化而来的认知偏见，也源于文化社会化。
