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Cognitive ecology of religion


Cognitive ecology of religion is an integrative approach to studying how religious beliefs covary with social and natural dynamics of the environment. This is done by incorporating a cognitive ecological perspective to cross-cultural god concepts. Religious beliefs are thought to be a byproduct of domain-specific cognitive modules that give rise to religious cognition. The cognitive biases leading to religious belief are constraints on perceptions of the environment, which is part and parcel of a cognitive ecological approach. This means that they not only shape religious beliefs, but they are determinants of how successfully cultural beliefs are transmitted.

Furthermore, cognition and behavior are inextricably linked, so the consequences of cultural concepts are associated with behavioral outcomes (i.e., continued interactions with the environment). For religion, behaviors often take the form of rituals and are similarly executed as a consequence of beliefs. Because the religious beliefs distributed in a population are relevant to their behavioral strategies and fine-tuned by natural selection, cross-cultural representations of gods and their characteristics are hypothesized to address ecologically relevant challenges. In other words, religious beliefs are thought to frequently involve solutions, insofar as evolved cognitive equipment can build them, to social and natural environmental problems faced by a given population.

Research in evolutionary psychology suggests that the brain is a coordinated network of domain-specific modules corresponding to various adaptations that emerged in our evolutionary history. Most claim that a capacity for religious thoughts is not a modular adaptation itself, but an evolutionary byproduct of multiple integrated mechanisms that arose independently and are designed for different functions. These modules are co-opted to give rise to religious thinking patterns, and they include theory of mind, essential psychology and the hyperactive agency detection device. Moreover, the cultural transmission of these ideas is contingent upon them being minimally counterintuitive.

Theory of mind (ToM) is a capacity to attribute mental states, complete with thoughts, emotions and motivations, to other social agents. This adaptation is ubiquitous in primitive forms among various social species, but the complexity of human social life for long stretches of evolutionary history has facilitated a rich understanding of others' mental experiences to match. Cases of autism have been cited in support for the proposition that ToM is a distinct modular adaptation because of its distinctly narrow impact on ToM capacity. ToM is thought to lend itself to an intuitive sense of mind-body dualism, where the material body is animated by a non-material self (i.e., a "soul").


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