Cognitive pathways to belief in karma and belief in God

Abstract

Supernatural beliefs are ubiquitous around the world, and there is mounting evidence that these beliefs partly rely on intuitive, cross-culturally recurrent cognitive processes. Specifically, past research has focused on humans’ intuitive tendency to perceive minds and reason about mental states as some of the cognitive foundations of belief in a personified God — an agentic, morally concerned supernatural entity. However, many widely-endorsed supernatural entities lack the agentic qualities that are prototypical of gods, raising interesting theoretical questions about the cognitive predictors of putatively non-theistic supernatural beliefs. In two studies and four high-powered samples, we investigated belief in karma—a culturally widespread but ostensibly non-agentic entity that reflects belief in ethical causation across reincarnations. Drawing on religiously diverse samples, we used path analyses to investigate how individual differences in intuitive thinking styles, mentalizing, mind-body dualism, and teleological thinking predict both belief in karma and belief in God. In Study 1 (N = 2006), a similar pattern of cognitive predictors was found among Canadian and mostly-Hindu Indian participants (Study 1), despite differences in the cultural-prevalence and religious histories of karma in these two cultures. Study 2 (N = 1752) provided a preregistered conceptual replication of these findings in a general American (mostly Christian) sample and a Singaporean Buddhist sample, and demonstrated that these cognitive variables predicted belief in karma and God above and beyond the variability explained by cultural learning. These results support an independent role for both culture and cognition in supporting supernatural beliefs.

Belief changes associated with psychedelic use

“…weather). Consistent with these hypotheses, predispositions to mentalize predict a range of non-physicalist beliefs, including paranormal beliefs, religiosity, and beliefs in God and karma, across different cultural samples (White et al, 2021;Willard et al, 2020;Willard and Norenzayan, 2013;Yaden, Haidt, et al, 2017).…”

“…Dualism is associated with belief in God, karma, paranormal beliefs, and afterlife beliefs (Riekki et al, 2013;White et al, 2021;Willard et al, 2020;Willard and Norenzayan, 2013). Tendencies toward teleological thinking seem similarly intuitive and are associated with beliefs in the paranormal, God, and karma as well as mentalizing (Banerjee and Bloom, 2014;White et al, 2021).…”

Maximally Intuitive, Minimally Evidenced: Universal cognitive biases as the basis for supernatural beliefs

“…When found, this relationship is small; perhaps because it is indirect. Individuals more prone to considering the mental states of others are potentially also more prone to related cognitive biases such as anthropomorphism, mind-body dualism, and teleology (C. J. M. White, Willard, et al, 2021;Willard et al, 2020;Willard & Norenzayan, 2013). These tendencies may lead to higher rates of religious belief, not differences in ToM directly.…”

Who Engages with Supernatural Entities? An Investigation of Personality and Cognitive Style Predictors

“…Regarding the expansion of cognitive predictors, it may be useful to distinguish the unique variance attributable to the styles we included from previously mentioned predictors of supernatural engagement that deal with reasoning about minds, such as ontological confusions (Lindeman et al, 2015), mentalizing deficits (Norenzayan et al, 2012), and teleological thinking (White et al, 2020). Furthermore, exploration of facet-level cognitive characteristics, and perhaps especially those with mental health implications (dissociation and schizotypy), may also be warranted.…”

“…Because any attempt at an exhaustive review is well beyond the scope of this paper, we refer interested readers to large surveys that highlight demographic and religious predictors (e.g., Bader et al, 2019; Baker, 2008; Lipka, 2019), studies looking at situational variables related to supernatural attributions (e.g., Barnes and Gibson, 2013; Lupfer et al, 1994; Wilt et al, 2019), and studies of relatively stable factors (e.g., socialization, motivations, beliefs) that may predispose people to supernatural engagement (e.g., Mercier et al, 2018; Weeks & Lupfer, 2000; Wilt, Stauner, et al, 2020). Another notable class of predictors that falls outside the focus of the current study includes cognitive variables that are related to reasoning about minds, such as ontological confusions (Lindeman et al, 2015), mentalizing deficits (Norenzayan et al, 2012), and teleological thinking (White et al, 2020). Here we focus on classes of relatively stable variables as potential predictors: broad dimensions of personality (the Big 5 traits), which are generally overlooked in studies of supernatural engagement, and more narrowly defined cognitive styles.…”