Dimensional Structure of and Variation in Anthropomorphic Concepts of God

Abstract

When considering other persons, the human mind draws from folk theories of biology, physics, and psychology. Studies have examined the extent to which people utilize these folk theories in inferring whether or not God has human-like biological, physical, and psychological constraints. However, few studies have examined the way in which these folk attributions relate to each other, the extent to which attributions within a domain are consistent, or whether cultural factors influence human-like attributions within and across domains. The present study assessed 341 individuals’ attributions of anthropomorphic properties to God in three domains (psychological, biological, and physical), their religious beliefs, and their engagement in religious practices. Three Confirmatory Factor Analyses tested hypothetical models of the underlying structure of an anthropomorphic concept of God. The best fitting model was the “Hierarchical Dimensions Concept,” the analyses indicated one overall dimension of anthropomorphism with three sub-domains. Additionally, participants’ religiosity was negatively related to attributing human-like psychological properties to God, suggesting that the more people engage with their religion, the less they think about God as having a ‘human-like’ mind. Religiosity was positively related to individual consistency scores in the biological domain. In other words, greater religiosity was related to less consistent answers about God’s biological properties. As a result, the findings of the current study also suggest that individuals do not just vary between each other in how much they anthropomorphize God, but additionally, variation exists in the type of anthropomorphic reasoning used within an individual person’s concept of God.

Sorting Through, and Sorting Out, Anthropomorphism in CSR

“…This claim is the theoretical interpretation of numerous studies by CSR researchers in which participants show a significant bias for attributing epistemic, emotional, and desirous psychological properties to the afterliving deceased over biological, psychobiological, and perceptual properties (Astuti & Harris, 2008;Bek & Lock, 2011;Bering, 2002;Gomes, Parrott, & Shepherd, 2016;Gray et al, 2011;Huang et al, 2013;Lane et al, 2016;Sebestény & Emmons, 2017;Watson-Jones et al, 2017). Likewise, this bias is demonstrated in experimental studies of the folk's representation of gods and interpreted by researchers as evidence of intuitive folk mind-body dualism, even though the wholly immaterial, independent minds attributed to the supernatural agents in these studies are not specifically human-like (Haslam et al, 2008;Nyhof & Johnson, 2017;Shaman et al, 2018;Shtulman, 2008;Shtulman & Lindeman, 2016).…”

“…An obvious and fundamental question that arises in discussions of anthropomorphism in the context of religionsis how to distinguish it from attributing agency to a thing, that is-animism (Epley et al, 2007;Shaman, Saide, & Richert, 2018;. Whatever the empirical difference between the two might be, it will surely not be a difference in kind.…”

“…To date, numerous experimental studies in CSR that have shown that the folk, beginning in childhood, both implicitly and explicitly attribute intentional agency to supernatural agents: this includes the afterliving deceased (Astuti & Harris, 2008;Bek & Lock, 2011;Bering, 2002;Gray, Knickman, & Wegner, 2011;Harris & Giménez, 2005;Huang, Cheng, & Zhu, 2013;Pereira et al, 2012;Watson-Jones et al, 2017) and the gods and other supernatural beings (Haslam, Kashima, Loughnan, Shi, & Suitner, 2008;Heiphetz, Lane, Waytz, & Young, 2016;Lane, Wellman, & Evans, 2010;Ma-Kellams, 2015;Moriguchi, Takahashi, Nakamata, & Todo, 2018;Shaman et al, 2018;Shtulman, 2008;Shtulman & Lindeman, 2016) Another staple of human psychology is our emotions (Damasio, 1994(Damasio, , 1999. Like intentional agency, emotional states are frequently anthropomorphized onto things-real or imaginary-in our environment to aid in our understanding and predicting of that things perceived behavior.…”

“…Again, although the initial narrative was neutral regarding time, space, and perceptual abilities for the deity, when the participants recalled and retold the narrative, the deity was 5 Of which I am aware at the time of writing this (Sept. 2018). Shaman et al (2018) came close to broaching this topic when they queried participants about God's ability to engage in pretense with an imaginary friend, but the question was too narrowly focused to shed light on God's potential for aesthetic agency. subject to the same restrictions of time and space-occupying a single location in space and attending to events sequentially through time--as well as having limited perceptual abilities similar to we humans.…”

“…The researchers implicitly Hodge -Anthropomorphism in CSR |14 assume that if one is physically anthropomorphizing a supernatural agent, then one must attribute all human-like physiological features to that thing at all times and at once (for examples of researchers proposing such (mis? )readings of both Guthrie's (1980Guthrie's ( ,1993 anthropomorphism theory of supernatural agents, see De Cruz (2013) and Shaman et al (2018) and likewise Boyer's (2001) PERSON template as applied to supernatural agents, see Shtulman (2008) and Shtulman and Lindeman (2016)). It would be cognitively overwhelming-not to mention violating all the principles of cognitive economy (Boden, 2006;d'Andrade, 1995;Hodge, 2006;Lambert & Chasteen, 1999;Medin & Ortony, 1989;Michalski, 1989)-if, when imaginatively representing a human-like embodied supernatural agent, we had to represent them with all the accompanying viscera, effluvia, skeletature, musculature, belly-button, and all.…”