CHONG HO YU, PH.D. PSYCHOLOGY AZUSA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY Bering’s psychology of religion

Jesse Bring Utilizing the framework of cognitive psychology and evolutionary psychology, Bering asserted that humans have a natural tendency to perceive that cognitive systems continue to function after death, and this disposition might be the psychological foundation of religion.

Bering et al. study Puppet alligator “ate” puppet rat. Children still believed that the rat “missed” his mother. Obituary: People tend to say nice things related to the kindness/morality of the dead. Ghost story: Examinees tended not to cheat when they were told that the ghost of the programmer who created the computerized exam was haunting.

Bering's study Dead agent: Participants were asked to rate the traits of three strangers displayed in photos. A week later they returned to continue the study but were told that one of the persons had died over the weekend. Afterwards, on average, participants rated the dead person more favorably than others, and this result was interpreted by fear of supernatural punishment.

Obituary Bering and his associates conducted a content analysis by extracting trait attributions from 496 obituaries published in the New York Times. The trait attributions were classified according to the categories in the Evaluation of Other Questionnaire (EOOQ).

Context Bering found that in those obituaries pro-social and morality-related attributes of the dead people appeared more frequently than other types of qualities, such as achievements. Along with the findings form other similar studies, Bering and his colleagues asserted that this behavioral pattern might result from adaptions during the evolutionary process.

Specifically, if dead agents were believed to be aware of what the living people said and did, it could strengthen our moral framework.

Limitation of Bering’s study Bering’s study has certain limitations. It is important to point out that 41% Americans attend church on a regular basis, and Christianity has major impacts on every aspect of people’s life. A Gallup poll shows that 92% Americans believe in the existence of God. Thus, the wording patterns found in New York Times obituaries and the idea of afterlife among the Americans could be a cultural product, instead of a natural tendency.

Purpose Another sample is obtained in order to further examine Bering’s notion. In contrast to the US, in the United Kingdom churchgoers are 10% of the entire population, and a survey indicates that only 44% of UK citizens believe in God. It is generally agreed that the UK is a more secular society than the US. If the perception of active dead agents is really natural or a-cultural, then the trait attributions found in the US sample should also be observed in the UK. In this project 400 obituaries were sourced from two UK newspapers, namely, Guardian and Independent.

Methodology Replicate the study using content analysis based on EOOQ and data-driven categories in MAXQDA Triangulate data analysis using SPSS Text Analytics (Commercial product) Content analysis relies on human coders whereas text mining is automated by natural language processing and computational linguistics.

EOOQ It is extremely rare to see negative attributes, such as “hypocritical” and “selfish” in those obituaries, and thus these categories are not useful.

New categories driven by the data Some new categories were created by the coders.

Content analysis results The top recurring codes belong to achievement- relatedness. Two others are also from this category. Three belong to kindness/morality One belongs to social skills

Accomplished tends to co-occur with inspiring, bravery, leadership, and talented

SPSS results

Finding The study is triangulated by analyses performed in three software packages (MAXQDA and SPSS Text Analytics) in two different modes: content analysis by human coders and text mining by algorithms. The analysis shows that in the UK sample achievement-oriented traits occurred more often than pro-social and morality-related traits. This finding suggests that the alleged perception of dead agents may be more cultural than natural.

Dead Agent There are alternate explanations to this outcome. The works of a deceased artist may become more valuable because this artist can no longer produce any more paintings. Similarly, we may say nice things to the dead out of sympathy. Data collected from their study cannot identify the cause of positive attributions.

Replication Take religious belief into account Ask the participants why they gave higher ratings to the dead person. Does religious background effect the trait attribute ratings of dead and non-dead agents?

Interview questions Can you guess the purpose of this study? Why do you give the dead person a more positive rating than others? Do you believe in supernatural beings? Please explain. Did you experience any supernatural event in the past? Please explain. Are you afraid that if you didn’t give positive rating to the dead person, you may face some negative consequence? Please explain.

Select photos by scores

Because they know what we tried to do by guessing n = 38 Three cases are excluded….

Results

Initially the non-religious group gave higher ratings to the dead person in the pretest, but the order switched in the posttest.

Results Religious participants gave much higher ratings to the dead agent in the posttest than what they gave in the pretest. On the other hand, the non-religious group dropped their ratings slightly.

Qualitative “Just be nice” Dark-green cases are non- religious

Qualitative results Most are not afraid of ghosts (Yellow highlight). Only two said yes (red arrow)

Perception--> illusion Bering (2010): Nature may have had a few tricks up her sleeve to ensure that we would fall hook, line, and sinker for these spectacular ruses. Ultimately, of course, you must decide for yourself whether the subjective psychological effects created by your evolved cognitive biases reflect an objective reality, perhaps as evidence that God designed your mind to be so receptive to Him.

Perception--> illusion Bering (2010): Or, just maybe, you will come to acknowledge that, like the rest of us, you are a hopeless pawn in one of natural selection's most successful hoaxes ever--and smile at the sheer ingenuity involved in pulling it off, at the very thought of such mindless cleverness. One can still enjoy the illusion of God, after all, without believing Him to be real

Wishful-thinking? In an interview Bering voiced his objection that when people change their mind about their belief of God, such as a death-bed conversion, Evangelical Christians utilize these opportunities to advocate their course. According to Bering, death-bed conversions may simply be a psychological illusion, which is irrelevant to the objective reality (Mulvey, 2012).

Wishful-thinking? This line of reasoning is questionable because although one’s subjective feeling may or may not reflect the objective reality, it does not necessarily imply that the perception must be an illusion. For example, when I perceive that my wife loves me, it is possible that I might be wrong or I might be wrong. I could construct a psychological explanation to my feeling based on Maslow’s humanistic psychology.

Wishful-thinking? However, even if there is a convincing psychological theory to explain my tendency of looking for love, it still cannot lead to a firm conclusion that my wife does not love me at all. To be blunt, religion as a result of cognitive bias is a pre-supposition, not a logical necessity deduced from sound reasoning or substantiated by empirical data.

References Bering, J. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (2005). Reasoning about dead agents reveals possible adaptive trends. Human Nature, 16, Shapiro, J. P. (1988). Relationships between dimensions of depressive experience and evaluative beliefs about people in general. Personality Social Psychological Bulletins, 14, Yu, C. H., Jannasch-Pennell, A., & DiGangi, S. (2011). Compatibility between text mining and qualitative research in the perspectives of grounded theory, content analysis, and reliability. Qualitative Report, 16, Retrieved from