A5066066542- Cultural Differences and Values
- Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology
- Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
- Child and Animal Learning Development
- Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Religious Education and Schools
- Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy
- Identity, Memory, and Therapy
- Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion
- Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Emotions and Moral Behavior
- Religion, Society, and Development
- Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Action Observation and Synchronization
- Psychological and Educational Research Studies
- Gender Roles and Identity Studies
- Categorization, perception, and language
- Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies
- Theology and Philosophy of Evil
- Health Policy Implementation Science
- Artificial Intelligence in Law
- Sleep and Wakefulness Research
- Environmental Education and Sustainability
University of California, Riverside
2021-2024
Stanford University
2015-2021
University of Wisconsin–Madison
2012-2015
Group‐based social hierarchies exist in nearly every society, yet little is known about whether children understand that they exist. The present studies investigated 3‐ to 10‐year‐old ( N = 84) South Africa associate higher status racial groups with levels of wealth, one indicator status. Children matched value belongings White people more often than multiracial or Black and people, thus showing sensitivity the de facto hierarchy their society. There were no age‐related changes children’s...
How do people make sense of the emotions, sensations, and cognitive abilities that up mental life? Pioneering work on dimensions mind perception has been interpreted as evidence consider life to have two core components-experience (e.g., hunger, joy) agency planning, self-control) [Gray HM, et al. (2007) Science 315:619]. We argue this conclusion is premature: The experience-agency framework may capture people's understanding differences among different beings dogs, humans, robots, God) but...
Significance The sensory presence of gods and spirits is central to many the religions that have shaped human history—in fact, people faith report having experienced such events. But these experiences are poorly understood by social scientists rarely studied empirically. We present a multiple-discipline, multiple-methods program research involving thousands from diverse cultures which demonstrates two key factors—cultural models mind personal orientations toward mind—explain why some more...
Phenomenal experiences of immaterial spiritual beings-hearing the voice God, seeing spirit an ancestor-are a valuable and largely untapped resource for field cognitive science. Such experiences, we argue, are mind, tied to mental models cognitive-epistemic attitudes about thus provide striking example how, with right combination attitudes, one's own thoughts inner sensations can be experienced as coming from somewhere or someone else. In this paper, present results large-scale study U.S....
Abstract The present research investigated young children's automatic encoding of two social categories that are highly relevant to adults: gender and race. Three‐ 6‐year‐old participants learned facts about unfamiliar target children who varied in either or race were asked remember which went with targets. When made mistakes, they more likely confuse targets the same than different genders, but equally within across racial groups. However, a preference measure indicated sensitive both...
[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in
Caregiving relationships with infants and children are among the most common complex human social interactions. Adults' perceptions of children's mental capacities have important consequences for well-being in their care—particularly first few years life, when communication skills limited caregivers must infer rapidly developing thoughts, feelings, needs. In a series studies, we assessed how US adults conceptualize development mind over five life. Exploratory factor analysis identified four...
Much of the richness human thought is supported by people's intuitive theories-mental frameworks capturing perceived structure world. But theories can also contain and reinforce dangerous misconceptions. In this paper, we take up case misconceptions about vaccine safety that discourages vaccination. These constitute a major public health risk predates coronavirus pandemic but has become all more dire in recent years. We argue addressing such requires awareness broader conceptual contexts...
Are religious beliefs psychologically different from matter-of-fact beliefs? Many scholars say no: that people, in a way, simply think their deities exist. Others yes: are more compartmentalized, less certain, and responsive to evidence. Little research date has explored whether lay people themselves recognize such difference. We addressed this question series of sentence completion tasks, conducted five settings differed both traditions language: the United States, Ghana, Thailand, China,...
Children recognize that people who know more are better informants than those less. How does an individual's prior knowledge affect children's decisions about whom to inform? In 3 experiments, 3- 6-year-old children were invited share a novel piece of information with 1 2 potential recipients differed in their recent history knowledge. tended inform the previously knowledgeable person rather ignorant person. This same effect was observed 4th experiment when stated she already knew...
The sense of presence—or the "being there"—is a poorly understood phenomenon, especially in case "unseen others," e.g., God. We used tools virtual reality (VR) to explore effects active imagination creating presence an ambiguously real other. found that adding visual representation was more effective than verbal language alone evoking social ten-minute intervention, proclivity for absorption enhanced and environmental presence, associated with responsive interaction. present our data...
Abstract The Mind and Spirit project uses methods from anthropology psychology to explore the way understandings of what English‐speakers call ‘the mind’ may shape kinds events people experience deem ‘spiritual’. In this piece, we step back reflect on interdisciplinary approach. We observe that, in some ways, both fields are parallel states critical self‐reflection around explanation comparison: wake postmodern postcolonial critique; response a pair recent crises about overreliance Western...
When scholars and scientists set out to understand religious commitment, the sensation that gods spirits are real may be at least as important a target of inquiry belief they real. The sensory quasisensory events people take presence spirit—the voice an invisible being, feeling person who is dead nonetheless in room—are found both foundational stories faith surprisingly often lives faithful. These become evidence there. We argue heart such spiritual experiences concept porous boundary...
The Developing Belief Network is a consortium of researchers studying human development in diverse social-cultural settings, with focus on the interplay between general cognitive and culturally specific processes socialization cultural transmission early middle childhood. current manuscript describes study protocol for network’s first wave data collection, which aims to explore diversity religious cognition behavior. This work guided by three key research questions: (1) How do children...
In this paper, we carefully catalog the rates at which people report having spiritual experiences across five cultural contexts. By reporting these rates, organized by item and category, learn something broader about experience cognition itself. We find that there is structure, an architecture, of experience, where some categories are more common than others. further culture shapes but does not determine architecture experience.
Abstract Prayer, a repeated practice of paying attention to one's inner mental world, is core behavior across many faiths and traditions, understudied by cognitive scientists. Previous research suggests that humans pray because prayer changes the way they feel or how think. This paper makes novel argument: what perceive. Those who pray, we find, are more likely report sensory perceptual experiences which take be evidence god spirit. Across three studies encompassing data from thousands...
The Developing Belief Network is a consortium of researchers studying human development in diverse social-cultural settings, with focus on the interplay between general cognitive and culturally specific processes socialization cultural transmission early middle childhood. current manuscript describes study protocol for network’s first wave data collection, which aims to explore diversity religious cognition behavior. This work guided by three key research questions: (1) How do children...