Maij David L R, van Harreveld Frenk, Gervais Will, Schrag Yann, Mohr Christine, van Elk Michiel
University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
University of Kentucky, Department of Psychology, Lexington, Kentucky, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2017 Aug 23;12(8):e0182764. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0182764. eCollection 2017.
The ability to mentalize has been marked as an important cognitive mechanism enabling belief in supernatural agents. In five studies we cross-culturally investigated the relationship between mentalizing and belief in supernatural agents with large sample sizes (over 67,000 participants in total) and different operationalizations of mentalizing. The relative importance of mentalizing for endorsing supernatural beliefs was directly compared with credibility enhancing displays-the extent to which people observed credible religious acts during their upbringing. We also compared autistic with neurotypical adolescents. The empathy quotient and the autism-spectrum quotient were not predictive of belief in supernatural agents in all countries (i.e., The Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States), although we did observe a curvilinear effect in the United States. We further observed a strong influence of credibility enhancing displays on belief in supernatural agents. These findings highlight the importance of cultural learning for acquiring supernatural beliefs and ask for reconsiderations of the importance of mentalizing.
心理化能力被视为一种重要的认知机制，它促使人们相信超自然力量。在五项研究中，我们通过跨文化研究，以大样本量（总计超过67000名参与者）以及对心理化的不同操作化方式，调查了心理化与对超自然力量的信仰之间的关系。我们将心理化对于认可超自然信仰的相对重要性，与可信度增强展示（即人们在成长过程中观察到可信宗教行为的程度）进行了直接比较。我们还比较了自闭症青少年和神经典型青少年。共情商数和自闭症谱系商数在所有国家（即荷兰、瑞士和美国）都不能预测对超自然力量的信仰，不过我们在美国确实观察到了一种曲线效应。我们进一步观察到可信度增强展示对超自然力量信仰有强烈影响。这些发现凸显了文化学习对于获得超自然信仰的重要性，并要求重新考虑心理化的重要性。
