Religion and cognition : a reader / edited by D. Jason Slone.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Slone, D. Jason.

Series:

Critical categories in the study of religion.

Critical categories in the study of religion

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychology, Religious.

Cognition and culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (392 p.)

Place of Publication:

Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2014.

Summary:

The cognitive science of religion examines the mental processes that govern religious belief and behaviour. It offers a fresh and exciting approach to the scientific study of religion. Religion and Cognition brings together key essays which outline the theory and illustrate this with experimental case material. The central topics in this new critical field of research are all addressed: meta-theoretical arguments for cognitive explanations of religion; theoretical models of cognition employed in the cognitive science of religion; prominent cognitive theories of religion; methods used to gather data and test theories; and experimental findings by cognitive scientists of religion. Contributors: Scott Atran, Justin L. Barrett, Jesse Bering, David F. Bjorklund, Pascal Boyer, E. Margaret Evans, Susan A. Gelman, Lawrence A. Hirschfeld, Frank C. Keil, Deborah Kelemen, Nicola Knight, E. Thomas Lawson, Robert N. McCauley, Melanie A. Nyhof, Charles Ramble, Rebekah A. Richert, Paulo Sousa, Dan Sperber.

Contents:

Cover; Half Title; Title; Copyright; Dedication; Contents; Acknowledgments; Religion and Cognition: An Introduction; PART I; 1 Interpretation and Explanation: Problems and Promise in the Study of Religion; 2 The Epidemiology of Beliefs: A Naturalistic Approach; 3 Toward a Topography of Mind: An Introduction to Domain Specificity; 4 Exploring the Natural Foundations of Religion; 5 Are Children ""Intuitive Theists""? Reasoning about Purpose and Design in Nature; PART II; 6 Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts

7 Spreading Non-natural Concepts: The Role of Intuitive Conceptual Structures in Memory and Transmission in Culture8 Cognitive Templates for Religious Concepts: Cross-Cultural Evidence for Recall of Counter-Intuitive Representations; 9 Ritual Intuitions: Cognitive Contributions to Judgments of Ritual Efficacy; 10 Cognitive and Contextual Factors in the Emergence of Diverse Belief Systems: Creation versus Evolution; 11 Children's Attributions of Beliefs to Humans and God: Cross-cultural Evidence; 12 The Natural Emergence of Reasoning about the Afterlife as a Developmental Regularity

13 Modes of Research: Combining Cognitive Psychology and Anthropology through Whitehouse's Modes of ReligiosityIndex of Authors; Index of Subjects

Notes:

First published 2006 by Equinox, an imprint of Acumen.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed April 12, 2016).

ISBN:

1-84465-744-2

1-315-53942-X

1-134-94194-3

1-134-94187-0

9781315539423

OCLC:

945975578