Journal
COGNITIVE SCIENCE
Volume 41, Issue -, Pages 455-476Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12430
Keywords
Afterlife beliefs; Cognitive science of religion; Conceptual development; Cross-cultural comparison; Death concepts; Dualism; Explanation; Explanatory coexistence; Naive biology; Naive psychology; Religious cognition; Supernatural cognition; Supernatural reasoning; Vanuatu
Categories
Funding
- John Templeton Foundation [37624, 40102]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Mounting evidence suggests that endorsement of psychological continuity and the afterlife increases with age. This developmental change raises questions about the cognitive biases, social representations, and cultural input that may support afterlife beliefs. To what extent is there similarity versus diversity across cultures in how people reason about what happens after death? The objective of this study was to compare beliefs about the continuation of biological and psychological functions after death in Tanna, Vanuatu (a Melanesian archipelago), and the United States (Austin, Texas). Children, adolescents, and adults were primed with a story that contained either natural (non-theistic) or supernatural (theistic) cues. Participants were then asked whether or not different biological and psychological processes continue to function after death. We predicted that across cultures individuals would be more likely to endorse the continuation of psychological processes over biological processes (dualism) and that a theistic prime would increase continuation responses regarding both types of process. Results largely supported predictions; U.S. participants provided more continuation responses for psychological than biological processes following both the theistic and non-theistic primes. Participants in Vanuatu, however, provided more continuation responses for biological than psychological processes following the theistic prime. The data provide evidence for both cultural similarity and variability in afterlife beliefs and demonstrate that individuals use both natural and supernatural explanations to interpret the same events.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available