Establishing Personal Identity in Reincarnation: Minds and Bodies Reconsidered

Abstract

Little is known about how the minds and bodies of reincarnated agents are represented. In three studies, participants decided which individual, out of multiple contenders, was most likely to be the reincarnation of a deceased person, based upon a single matching feature between the deceased and each of the candidates. While most participants endorsed reincarnation as entailing a new body, they reasoned that candidates with a similar physical mark (e.g., a mole) or a similar episodic autobiographical memory to the deceased, when alive, were more likely than candidates with other physical or psychological based similarities to be the reincarnation of the deceased. As predicted, by increasing the distinctiveness of a matching physical mark and an episodic autobiographical memory, while holding others constant, likelihood judgments for the candidate with the similar distinctive physical mark were significantly higher than candidates with non-distinctive physical marks, but differences between the distinct and general episodic autobiographical memory condition did not reach statistical significance. These findings support the claim that we intuitively represent reincarnated agents as psychologically determined but physically embodied, and that different assumptions underpin the use of physical and psychological features to establish identity in reincarnation contexts.

Cognitive Pathways to Belief in Karma and Belief in God

“…Thinking about moralized reincarnation requires (a) understanding human morality, including the human intentions and mental states that inform the morality of many actions (Gray, Young, & Waytz, 2012; Willard, Baimel, et al, 2020; cf. McNamara, Willard, Norenzayan, & Henrich, 2019); and (b) believing that human minds can continue to exist after death and persist through reincarnation in new bodies (White, 2015, 2017). Karma then provides a teleological structure for reasoning about one's own and others' life experiences.…”

Minds, bodies, spirits, and gods: Does widespread belief in disembodied beings imply that we are inherent dualists?

“…We identify people by their physical bodies, and in societies where reincarnation beliefs exist, reincarnated persons are likewise identified by their physical similarity to the deceased (White, 2016a). In experimental investigations of reincarnation beliefs, White (2015White ( , 2016b asked participants to imagine they are the elder in a village where people believe in reincarnation. As elder, they were responsible for deciding the likelihood that each of several candidates was the reincarnation of a deceased person.…”

Cognitive pathways to belief in karma and belief in God

“…Thinking about moralized reincarnation requires 1understanding human morality, including the human intentions and mental states that inform the morality of many actions (Gray et al, 2012;Willard, Baimel, et al, 2020;cf. McNamara et al, 2019), and (2) believing that human minds can continue to exist after death and persist through reincarnation in new bodies (C. White, 2015White, , 2017. Karma then provides a teleological structure for reasoning about one's own and others' life experiences.…”