The Experimental Study of Religion: or There and Back Again
Issued Date: 20 Mar 2014
Abstract
Within the last two decades, the cognitive science of religion has gained momentum, and this has led to a call for dedicated experimental studies addressing this level of explanation. However, what does such an experimental turn mean for the study of religion more generally? How does it affect what we study and the methods we use to study it? Does it alter with whom we cooperate, where we publish and what scholarly discussions we take part in? In this article, we discuss how the experimental study of religious phenomena changes the theoretical subject matter and how it involves a new relation between theoretical modeling, methodological reduction and generalization. We argue that, similar to all new approaches, an experimental methodology is likely to alter the study of religion in the short run, but in the longer perspective experimental approaches are likely to take their place beside other approaches that constitute the broader field of the academic study of religion.
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References
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Shariff, A.F., and A. Norenzayan. 2007. “God Is Watching You Priming God Concepts Increases Prosocial Behavior in an Anonymous Economic Game.” Psychological Science 18 (9): 803–809.
Smith, J. Z. 1993. Map Is Not Territory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sperber, D. 1975. Rethinking Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Starfield, A. M., K. A. Smith, and A. L. Bleloch. 1990. How to Model It. McGraw-Hill College.
Sørensen, J. 2007. "Acts That Work: a Cognitive Approach to Ritual Agency." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 19 (3): 281–300. doi:10.1163/157006807X240118.
Sørensen, J. 2011. "Past Minds: Present Historiography and Cognitive Science". Chapter 13 in L. Martin and J. Sørensen (eds.) Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography. London: Equinox Publishing.
Whitehouse, H. 2004. Modes of Religiosity. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.
Wilson, E. O. 1999. Consilience. New York: Vintage.
Xygalatas, D., P. Mitkidis, and R. Fischer, P. Reddish, j. Skewes, A. W. Geertz, A. Roepstorff, and J. Bulbulia. In press. “Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality.” Psychological Science
Zacks, J. M., and B. Tversky. 2001. Event Structure in Perception and Conception. Psychological Bulletin 127 (1): 3-21
Barrett, J. L. and F. C. Keil. 1996. “Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity: Anthropomorphism in God Concepts.” Cognitive Psychology 31 (3): 219–247.
Bateson, M., D. Nettle, and G. Roberts. 2006. “Cues of Being Watched Enhance Cooperation in a Real-World Setting.” Biology Letters 2 (3) (September 22): 412–414. doi:10.1016/S0960-9822(02)00890-4.
Berger, P. L. 2011. The Sacred Canopy. New York: Open Road.
Boyer, P. 1994. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Boyer, P. 1996. " Religion as an impure object: a note on cognitive order in religious representation in response to Brian Malley. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 8 (2):201-14
Boyer, P. and P. Liénard. 2007. “Precaution Systems and Ritualized Behavior.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 29 (06) (February 8). doi:10.1017/S0140525X06009575.
Boyer, P. and P. Liénard. 2008. “Ritual Behavior in Obsessive and Normal Individuals: Moderating Anxiety and Reorganizing the Flow of Action.” Current Directions in Psychological Science 17 (4): 291–294. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00592.x.
Clifford, J. and G. E. Marcus. 1986. Writing Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Durkheim, É. 1995. Elementary Forms of the Religious Life. Translated by Karen Elise Fields. New York: Free Press.
Gallie, W.B. 1955. “Essentially Contested Concepts.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 56: 167–198.
Geertz, C. 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays. New York: Fontana Press.
Guthrie, S. E. 1995. Faces in the Clouds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Heintz, C. 2011. Cognitive History and Cultural Epidemiology. Chapter 2 in L. Martin and J. Sørensen (eds.) Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography. London: Equinox Publishing.
Lévi-Strauss, C. 1963. Totemism. New York: Beacon Press.
Liénard, Pierre and Pascal Boyer. 2008. “Whence Collective Rituals? a Cultural Selection Model of Ritualized Behavior.” American Anthropologist 108(4): 814-27
Lisdorf, A. 2011. "Prisons of the longue durée: The Circulation and Acceptance of prodigia in Roman Antiquity. Chapter 7 in L. Martin and J. Sørensen (eds.) Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography. London: Equinox Publishing.
Lyotard, J. F. 1984. The Post-Modern Condition. Transl. Geoffrey Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Martin, L. H., and J. Sørensen. 2011. Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography. London: Equinox Publishing.
McCauley, R. N. 2011. Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Menon, T, M. W. Morris, C. Chiu, and Y. Hong. 1999. “Culture and the Construal of Agency: Attribution to Individual Versus Group Dispositions.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76(5): 701-17.
Morris, M. W., R. E. Nisbett, and K. Peng. 1995. “Causal Attribution Across Domains and Cultures.” in D. Sperber, D. Premack and A.J Premack: Causal Cognition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Nisbett, R. E., K. Peng, I. Choi, and A. Norenzayan. 2001. “Culture and Systems of Thought: Holistic Versus Analytic Cognition.” Psychological Review 108(2): 291-310
Riekki, T., M. Lindeman, M. Aleneff, A. Halme, and A. Nuortimo. 2013. "Paranormal and Religious Believers Are More Prone to Illusory Face Perception than Skeptics and Non-believers." Applied Cognitive Psychology 27: 150-155.
Saler, B. 2000. Conceptualizing Religion. New York: Berghan Books.
Schjoedt, U., J. Sørensen, K. L. Nielbo, D. Xygalatas, P. Mitkidis, and J. Bulbulia. 2013. “Cognitive resource depletion in religious interaction.” Religion, Brain & Behavior 3 (1): 39–86. doi:10.1080/2153599X.2012.745447.
Shariff, A.F., and A. Norenzayan. 2007. “God Is Watching You Priming God Concepts Increases Prosocial Behavior in an Anonymous Economic Game.” Psychological Science 18 (9): 803–809.
Smith, J. Z. 1993. Map Is Not Territory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sperber, D. 1975. Rethinking Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Starfield, A. M., K. A. Smith, and A. L. Bleloch. 1990. How to Model It. McGraw-Hill College.
Sørensen, J. 2007. "Acts That Work: a Cognitive Approach to Ritual Agency." Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 19 (3): 281–300. doi:10.1163/157006807X240118.
Sørensen, J. 2011. "Past Minds: Present Historiography and Cognitive Science". Chapter 13 in L. Martin and J. Sørensen (eds.) Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography. London: Equinox Publishing.
Whitehouse, H. 2004. Modes of Religiosity. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.
Wilson, E. O. 1999. Consilience. New York: Vintage.
Xygalatas, D., P. Mitkidis, and R. Fischer, P. Reddish, j. Skewes, A. W. Geertz, A. Roepstorff, and J. Bulbulia. In press. “Extreme Rituals Promote Prosociality.” Psychological Science
Zacks, J. M., and B. Tversky. 2001. Event Structure in Perception and Conception. Psychological Bulletin 127 (1): 3-21
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