Teleology and the intentions of supernatural agents

How cultural learning and cognitive biases shape religious beliefs

“…Several studies have also indicated that cognitive biases theorized to predict supernatural belief fail to do so among individuals who lack explicit belief and/or situational reminders that these supernatural entities are real. For instance, promiscuous agency detection is heightened by a combination of religiosity and a supernatural prime [56], or expectations that one will encounter an agent [57], and teleological biases are expressed explicitly [not merely implicitly] among people who are highly religious [62], consistent with the perspective that cultural learning is necessary to make supernatural experiences seem plausible. There are ample opportunities for future research, utilizing a broader array of sampled populations and more clear consideration of the religious and ecological contexts in which they live to identify the ways in which cognitive variables predict belief differently in different cultural contexts.…”

The consequences of anthropomorphic and teleological beliefs in a global pandemic

“…Therefore, we could say that eyes are for seeing, because the function of sight is the very reason why the genes for eyes spread throughout the population (Wright, 1976). Despite teleological explanations for biological traits being widely accepted as true due to the consequence aetiology upon which they are based, most individuals tend to misunderstand natural selection as being purposeful and goal-directed (Brumby, 1984), suggesting that in many instances, acceptance of such teleological explanations may actually reflect a misbelief that eyes were designed to serve the future function of sight (Roberts et al, 2020).…”

“…For example, it would be controversial to claim that "rivers flow downstream to get to the ocean", as rivers do not intend to get to the ocean, rivers were not designed to get to the ocean, and rivers do not currently flow downstream because they previously got to the ocean more successfully than other rivers. Despite the fact that teleological explanations for biological and non-biological natural entities are controversial, such explanations are widely accepted by children (Kelemen, 1999b, but see Greif et al, 2006;Keil, 1992), and to a lesser extent, adults (Kelemen et al, 2013;Roberts et al, 2020;Willard & Norenzayan, 2013).…”

“…Rates of acceptance for teleological explanations about biological and non-biological natural entities have been shown to increase under time pressure to respond (Kelemen et al, 2013;Kelemen & Rosset, 2009;Mills & Frowley, 2014;Roberts et al, 2020), in the absence of formal education (Casler & Kelemen, 2008), or when semantic knowledge is impaired as a result of neurodegeneration (Lombrozo et al, 2007). Coupled with findings that rates of acceptance for teleological explanations about biological and non-biological natural entities are negatively related to the tendency to inhibit intuitively appealing yet incorrect responses to simple reasoning problems on the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Roberts et al 1 ., in press; Zemla et al, 2012) 2 , this suggests that the expression of such teleological beliefs can be conceptualised within a dual-process framework.…”

“…Evidence suggests that the tendency to anthropomorphise facilitates teleological beliefs about biological and non-biological natural entities. Acceptance of such beliefs is positively predicted by belief in the intrinsic agency of nature (Kelemen et al, 2013), the belief that supernatural agents act intentionally (Roberts et al, 2020), and by scores on a validated measure of anthropomorphism (Roberts et al, in press;Willard et al, 2020;Willard & Norenzayan, 2013). An implication of these findings for the coronavirus pandemic, is that driven by a need to understand, predict, and control the environment, people may anthropomorphise the virus, thereby attributing it with the "goal" of spreading and causing sickness.…”