Theory of Mind, Religiosity, and Autistic Spectrum Disorder: a Review of Empirical Evidence Bearing on Three Hypotheses

Abstract

The cognitive science of religions’ By-Product Theory contends that much religious thought and behavior can be explained in terms of the cultural activation of maturationally natural cognitive systems. Those systems address fundamental problems of human survival, encompassing such capacities as hazard precautions, agency detection, language processing, and theory of mind. Across cultures they typically arise effortlessly and unconsciously during early childhood. They are not taught and appear independent of general intelligence. Theory of mind (mentalizing) undergirds an instantaneous and automatic intuitive understanding of minds, mental representations, and their implications for agents’ actions. By-Product theorists hypothesize about a social cognition content bias, holding that mentalizing capacities inform participants’ implicit understanding of religious representations of agents with counter-intuitive properties. That hypothesis, in combination with Baron-Cohen’s account of Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in terms of diminished theory of mind capacities (what he calls “mind-blindness”), suggests an impaired religious understanding hypothesis. It proposes that people with ASD have substantial limitations in intuitive understanding of and creative inferences from such representations. Norenzayan argues for a mind-blind atheism hypothesis, which asserts that the truth of these first two hypotheses suggests that people with ASD have an increased probability, compared to the general population, of being atheists. Numerous empirical studies have explored these three hypotheses’ merits. After carefully pondering distinctions between intuitive versus reflective mentalizing and between explicit versus implicit measures and affective versus cognitive measures of mentalizing, the available empirical evidence provides substantial support for the first two hypotheses and non-trivial support for the third.

Autism and Religion

“…McCauley et al (2019, 2020) argued that all three elements of the classic hypotheses on decreased religiosity in ASD are not sufficiently supported by empirical evidence, especially when the broader cultural context is considered [ 9 , 124 ]: Social cognition content bias hypothesis: natural ToM operations are central in religious representations of intentional agents with counterintuitive properties (e.g., ghosts passing the wall, angels that never die, gods present everywhere simultaneously), cognitive appeal, and their intuitive inferential potential. Impaired religious understanding hypothesis: deficits in ToM in ASD substantially limit intuitive understanding and inferences from religious representations about intentional agents with counterintuitive properties.…”

Autistic-Like Traits and Positive Schizotypy as Diametric Specializations of the Predictive Mind

“…It should come as no surprise, given the PSI hypothesis, that most or all of these abilities are at a deficit in autism. Autism is associated with theory-of-mind deficits (Baron-Cohen, 2000; McCauley et al, 2019), diminished self-reflection (Lind, 2010; Philippi & Koenigs, 2014), impaired episodic memory and episodic future thinking (i.e., mental time travel; Desaunay et al, 2020; Lind & Bowler, 2010; Lind et al, 2014; Terrett et al, 2013), impaired narrative-synthesis abilities (Baixauli et al, 2016), and impairments in the ability to engage in symbolic play (Baron-Cohen, 1987). I take all of this as support for the idea that, instead of constructing their own idiosyncratic worldviews, people high in autistic-like traits are more likely to adopt a conventional, culturally provided worldview (that may include the modern scientific worldview).…”

Autistic-like traits and Positive Schizotypy as Diametric Specializations of the Predictive Mind

“…Autism is associated with theory of mind deficits (Baron-Cohen, 2000;McCauley et al, 2019), diminished self-reflection (Lind, 2010;Philippi & Koenigs, 2014), impaired episodic memory and episodic future thinking (i.e., mental time travel; Lind et al, 2014;Lind & Bowler, 2010;Terrett et al, 2013;Desaunay et al, 2020), impaired narrative synthesis abilities (Baixauli et al, 2016) and impairments in the ability to engage in symbolic play (Baron-Cohen, 1987). I take all of this as support for the idea that, instead of constructing their own idiosyncratic worldviews, people high in autistic-like traits are more likely to adopt a conventional, culturally provided worldview (which may include the modern scientific worldview).…”