Cross‐Cultural Similarities and Differences in Person‐Body Reasoning: Experimental Evidence From the United Kingdom and Brazilian Amazon

Abstract

We report the results of a cross-cultural investigation of person-body reasoning in the United Kingdom and northern Brazilian Amazon (Marajó Island). The study provides evidence that directly bears upon divergent theoretical claims in cognitive psychology and anthropology, respectively, on the cognitive origins and cross-cultural incidence of mind-body dualism. In a novel reasoning task, we found that participants across the two sample populations parsed a wide range of capacities similarly in terms of the capacities' perceived anchoring to bodily function. Patterns of reasoning concerning the respective roles of physical and biological properties in sustaining various capacities did vary between sample populations, however. Further, the data challenge prior ad-hoc categorizations in the empirical literature on the developmental origins of and cognitive constraints on psycho-physical reasoning (e.g., in afterlife concepts). We suggest cross-culturally validated categories of ''Body Dependent'' and ''Body Independent'' items for future developmental and cross-cultural research in this emerging area.

The Distant Reading of Religious Texts: A “Big Data” Approach to Mind-Body Concepts in Early China

“…An early Chinese reader, no less than a contemporary reader of an English translation, glides smoothly over references to ancestors, spirits, or gods knowing things about the world, or becoming angry, but would be stopped in his or her tracks by a spirit troubled by shortness of breath or bowel problems. This converges with contemporary experimental research on people's intuitions about what functions of the self survive the death of the physical body (Cohen et al 2011), and points to what we see as the final nail in the coffin of any strong mind-body holist position: the fact that human beings seem to be intuitive, "weak" mind-body dualists, perceiving minds as somehow distinct from, and independent of, the physical bodies that house them (Bloom 2004); Slingerland 2013).…”

I’ve got a feeling: Urban and rural indigenous children’s beliefs about early life mentality

“…In addition, children sometimes claimed that they did not feel hungry or thirsty during the fetal period because the mother's body was feeding or hydrating them (e.g., ''No, [I couldn't be hungry] because my mom ate and passed me the nutrients''). These responses were coded as ''functional'' because children's justification logic assumed that bodily capacities were working even though their needs were being met (for evidence of psychobiological states being tied to bodily representations, see Bering & Bjorklund, 2004;Cohen, Burdett, Knight, & Barrett, 2011;Emmons & Kelemen, 2014). Finally, initial ''yes'' answers followed by ''I don't know'' were coded as functional because they demonstrated a bias toward believing that a particular capacity worked (7% of functional responses; see also Bering & Bjorklund, 2004, Experiments 2 and 3).…”

Sorting Through, and Sorting Out, Anthropomorphism in CSR

“…It is this religious fact, however, that most imperils the relevancy of CSR's research into supernatural agents and anthropomorphism. This is because the one characteristic upon which CSR researchers agree is that the folk represent supernatural agents as wholly disembodied beings despite the vast, overwhelming, and devastating evidence against this folk representation (for examples of this widespread agreement in CSR, see Bering, 2010;Boyer, 2001;Cohen, Burdett, Knight, & Barrett, 2011;Gervais, 2013;Gray et al, 2011;Norenzayan, 2013;Purzycki & Willard, 2016;Shtulman & Lindeman, 2016). This is because CSR researchers are firmly convinced that the folk are intuitive mind-body dualists, seeing the mind as the immaterial carrier and conveyor of our mental lives and personal identity and wholly separate and independent from our physical bodies.…”