Antecedents, Manifestations, and Consequences of Belief in Mind–Body Dualism

Forstmann, Matthias; Burgmer, Pascal

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-57306-9_8

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 101 publications

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“…The physical and the mental distinction is also commonly used and applied across metaphysical, clinical, and basic psychological domains. Beyond taxonomy, these distinctions often shape our subjective experiences, and guide subsequent thoughts and behaviors (Forstmann & Burgmer, 2017). For instance, endorsing the ideas of the “body” and “soul” and their existence in the afterlife is fundamental to believing in the supernatural and acquiring religious beliefs (Astuti & Harris, 2008; Atran & Norenzayan, 2004; Bering & Bjorklund, 2004).…”

Section: The Physical and Mental Perceptions Of Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Subjective experiences are often as important as actual, objective experiences in affecting attitudes and behaviors (e.g., Zedelius et al, 2017). Especially in the clinical and wellness domains, people’s judgments of the physical and the mental as distinct have been shown to increase negative health attitudes and behaviors, such as engaging in more unhealthy eating (Forstmann & Burgmer, 2017; Forstmann et al, 2012). Therefore, in addition to extending the current knowledge about the origins of physical and mental lay judgments, ascertaining these sources will also point to potential ways of shaping subjective physical and mental judgments to increase more adaptive health attitudes and behaviors.…”

Section: The Physical and Mental Perceptions Of Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Internal and social sources shape judgments about the mental and physical nature of an experience.

Tan¹,

Karan²

2021

Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice

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Although humans are intuitive dualists, little is known about whether they hold lay beliefs about the origins or sources of their intuitive perceptions of what is physical and what is mental. Drawing on theories of the sources of phenomenological experiences, we examined if people hold beliefs about the internal and social origins of judgments that their experiences are physical or mental. In Study 1, participants provided physical or mental judgments about a range of personal experiences, and reported relying on both internal (i.e., examining own body and thoughts) and social (i.e., observing others) sources as information for their judgments. To examine the actual reliance on such information, in two additional studies, participants were randomly assigned to receive feedback about whether a target experience was physical or mental in nature, ostensibly from an internal source in Study 2 and a social source in Study 3. Following this feedback, participants recounted a personal instance of the target experience and subsequently judged its physical or mental nature. Participants' judgments were found to align with feedback from both internal and social sources. Overall, these findings demonstrate that people do hold lay beliefs about the internal and social origins of physical and mental perceptions, and information from these sources do shape judgments of their own experiences. Implications for the science of lay theories, as well as the applied domains of clinical and health psychology are discussed.

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Section: The Physical and Mental Perceptions Of Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Physical and Mental Perceptions Of Experiencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Internal and social sources shape judgments about the mental and physical nature of an experience.

Tan¹,

Karan²

2021

Psychology of Consciousness: Theory, Research, and Practice

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show abstract

“…In contrast to such rather specific beliefs regarding tangible phenomena like eating and exercising habits, the present research focuses on how more fundamental, metaphysical beliefs – particularly, belief in mind-body dualism – shape health-related behaviors. In fact, lay people’s beliefs about these issues have repeatedly been shown to influence behavioral outcomes just as much as more specific beliefs do (see Forstmann & Burgmer, 2017, for a recent overview). The goal of the present research is to expand our understanding of the relation between belief in dualism and health outcomes by examining how lay people conceptualize the physical antecedents of their mental well-being.…”

Section: Belief In Mind-body Dualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While belief in dualism can be encountered across cultures (Roazzi, Nyhof, & Johnson, 2013), lay concepts related to mind and body show variation between individuals (Lindeman, Riekki, & Svedholm-Häkkinen, 2015). In addition, they have important downstream consequences for psychological processes such as how we reason about other people’s minds (Burgmer, Forstmann, & Todd, 2018; Forstmann & Burgmer, 2017). More important for the current research, however, are the effects of belief in dualism on health-related attitudes and behaviors.…”

Section: Belief In Mind-body Dualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mind-Body Dualism and Health Revisited

Burgmer

Forstmann

2018

Social Psychology

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Abstract. Does a sound mind require a sound body? Whether or not lay people subscribe to this notion depends on their belief in mind-body dualism and critically shapes their health-related behaviors. Six studies (N = 1,710) revisit the relation between dualism and health. We replicate the negative correlation between belief in dualism and health behavior (Study 1) and extend it to behavior in the field (Study 2). Studies 3a and 3b investigate how belief in dualism shapes intuitions about the material origin of psychological well-being, while Studies 4a and 4b examine how these intuitions determine health-related outcomes. In sum, construing minds as different from bodies entails the intuition that mental well-being has little material substrate which in turn attenuates health-sustaining behaviors.

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“…For example, Lane, Wellman, and Evans () showed that children younger than 5 conceptualize the psychological characteristics of God and of persons similarly: On verbal response tasks, children younger than 5 who explicitly attributed constrained knowledge to persons (e.g., their mom) did also to God (for a review see Heiphetz, Lane, Waytz, & Young, ). Thus, according to intuitive or default Cartesian dualism, beliefs in disembodied beings are prevalent because they are a byproduct of the way in which core knowledge mechanisms inherently conceive of the relation between minds and bodies (also see, e.g., Bloom, ; Forstmann & Burgmer, ; ; Hood, Gjersoe, & Bloom, ; Kuhlmeier, Bloom, & Wynn, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Embodied God: Core Intuitions About Person Physicality Coexist and Interfere With Acquired Christian Beliefs About God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus

Barlev

Mermelstein

Cohen³

et al. 2019

Cognitive Science

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Why are disembodied extraordinary beings like gods and spirits prevalent in past and present theologies? Under the intuitive Cartesian dualism hypothesis, this is because it is natural to conceptualize of minds as separate from bodies; under the counterintuitiveness hypothesis, this is because beliefs in minds without bodies are unnatural—such beliefs violate core knowledge intuitions about person physicality and consequently have a social transmission advantage. We report on a critical test of these contrasting hypotheses. Prior research found that among adult Christian religious adherents, intuitions about person psychology coexist and interfere with theological conceptualizations of God (e.g., infallibility). Here, we use a sentence verification paradigm where participants are asked to evaluate as true or false statements on which core knowledge intuitions about person physicality and psychology and Christian theology about God are inconsistent (true on one and false on the other) versus consistent (both true or both false). We find, as predicted by the counterintuitiveness hypothesis but not the Cartesian dualism hypothesis, that Christian religious adherents show worse performance (lower accuracy and slower response time) on statements where Christian theological doctrines about God's physicality (e.g., incorporeality, omnipresence) conflict with intuitions about person physicality. We find these effects for other extraordinary beings in Christianity—the Holy Spirit and Jesus—but not for an ordinary being (priest). We conclude that it is unintuitive to conceptualize extraordinary beings as disembodied, and that this, rather than inherent Cartesian dualism, may explain the prevalence of beliefs in such beings.

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Antecedents, Manifestations, and Consequences of Belief in Mind–Body Dualism

Cited by 12 publications

References 101 publications

Internal and social sources shape judgments about the mental and physical nature of an experience.

Internal and social sources shape judgments about the mental and physical nature of an experience.

Mind-Body Dualism and Health Revisited

The Embodied God: Core Intuitions About Person Physicality Coexist and Interfere With Acquired Christian Beliefs About God, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus

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