Detailed Outline

Essential Question: What are the psychological reasons for belief in God?
1 Introduction
a Purpose: provide relevance to the psychological reasons for belief in God and to
give a deeper understanding of this belief
a Belief is a vital aspect of religions across the world, such as Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam
a Definition of Belief in God
a Artifact #9 (Belief-in and Belief in God)- Williams
1 "One could believe that both the Devil and God exist, but one could not
believe in both" (405).
a In order to understand basic belief, one must first understand what
belief entails belief. Belief in existence is not true belief in
something. The knowledge that something exists, doesn't mean that
one thinks that something is good, true, or just.
2 "If a man believes in God, he must believe of God that He and His
existence, are good" (405).
3 "It would be self-contradictory to say 'I believe in God but I have no faith
in Him,' since one specifies one's religious faith in specifying one's belief
in God" (406).
a Faith is something that is similar to belief in that not only is God in
existence but all that God does meets with the values of oneself.
a Thesis: The root of human belief in God is grounded in attribution of personal and
others' beliefs, a more intuitive style of thinking, and motivational innate desires.
1 Cognitive Perspective (attribution of personal and others' beliefs, intuition)
a Attribution bias
a Pattern seekers- why we attribute things
1 Artifact #5 (Why People Believe in God)- Shermer
a "As pattern seekers, we find the apparent good design of the
universe and the perceived action of a higher intelligence in our
daily living to be powerful intellectual justification for belief" (20).
i It is natural for us as humans to seek attribution to ourselves
and others.
2 Artifact #2 (A reason to believe)- Azar
a Neural underpinnings for adaptive belief/attribution
Neuroscience research supports idea that the brain
is primed to believe
This tendency is spread throughout the brain, and
probably arose from neural circuits developed for other uses
"In 2009, Grafman published an fMRI study
showing that religious thoughts activate the area of the brain
involved in deciphering other peoples emotions and intentions
the ability known as theory of mind. In the study of 40
people, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences (Vol. 106, No. 12), Grafman and his colleagues
found that when they heard phrases such as Gods will guides
my acts and God protects ones life, areas of the brain
involved in theory of mind lit up.
2 Artifact #10 (Explaining the Belief in God for Self, In-Group, and Out-
Group Targets)- Kenworthy
 a Attributional process research- examine tendency for people to
explain social behavior by making inferences of internal states that
go with outward behavior
b This research looks at conditions under which people exhibit the
bias of assuming that some relatively stable disposition, attitude, or
belief of an individual caused his or her behavior (137)
c "The present findings indicate that the position of belief in God,
however, is perceived as one characterized by a relatively high
degree of emotionality and a relatively low degree of rationality"
(143).
d Believers reported arriving at their own belief position because of a
rational thought process despite the average characterization of the
position of the believing in-group as less rational and more
emotional. (143)
i As believers in God, people tend to associate their own beliefs
based on rational terms, but others' belief in God on emotional
terms.
b It is important to distinguish that this study does not go into origins
for belief in God, but rather peoples' explanations for such origins.
2 Artifact #12 (Randomness, Attributions of Arousal, and Belief in God)-
Kay, A., Moscovitch, D., & Laurin, K.
a Results from this study: Observed that participants primed with
randomness-related words exhibited heightened beliefs in spiritual
control compared with participants primed with negatively valenced
control words
b This effect disappeared when participants were given the
opportunity to attribute the cause of any arousal they experienced to
a pill ingested earlier in the session
c "Belief in supernatural sources of control, such as God or karma,
may function, in part, to defend against distress associated with
randomness, even when the perception of randomness is not related
to traumatic events" (217).
i Attributions to your own beliefs can be drawn from
randomness, such as sudden death.
b Cognitive style--> reflective vs. intuitive
a Artifact #1 (Divine Intuition: Cognitive Style Influences Belief in God)-
Shenhav, A., Rand, D. G., & Greene, J. D.
o Study 1: "participants who gave more intuitive CRT responses
reported more confident belief in God on our continuous atheist-believer
scale" (424).
The more intuitive one's mind is, the greater of a chance
they will have belief in God.
o Study 3: tested for a causal relationship between cognitive style
and belief in God by experimentally inducing mindsets favoring intuition
over reflection or vice versa
Found that participants who wrote about an experience
that vindicated intuition, reported stronger belief in God, compared
with those who wrote about an experience that vindicated reflection
(427).
o Suggests that "correlation between intuitive thinking and belief in
God is not simply a reflection of a cultural pattern whereby childhood
 environments favoring religion also happen to favor intuition. Rather,
these data suggest that cognitive style predicts how one's religious beliefs
change over time, independent of one's childhood religious influences or
lack thereof" (425).
Based in biology --> link to Artifact #3 (The Cognitive
Psychology of Belief in the Supernatural)- Bering
"If humans are naturally inclined to believe in God
and the afterlife, there is a good reason to think that children
will exhibit signs of these traits before receiving cultural
indoctrination" (144).
The younger the child, the more likely he or she was
to endow the dead mouse with the capacity to experience
various mental states, despite the fact that the preschoolers
understood that the mouse's body had stopped functioning
Back to Artifact #1 again: Study 2: "showed that these
results [from study 1] held while cognitive ability and personality
were controlled" (427).
In both study 1 and 2, found that cognitive style
predicted self-reported changes in belief since childhood but
also uncorrelated with religious influences during childhood
Cognitive style is predictor of evolution of beliefs
over time
2 Behavioral Perspective (motivational innate desires)
a Evolutionary perspective embedded in this section
a Predisposed to believe- adaptations
b Biology
o Artifact #14 (Neural Markers of Religious Conviction)- Inzlicht,
M., McGregor, I., Hirsh, J., & Nash, K.
Suggest that religious conviction buffers against anxiety by
providing meaning systems that specify standards of behavior and
serve as guides that inform predictions about the self and the world
(390)
"a suppressed reaction to uncertainty appears to be one
mechanism by which religious beliefs can help reduce distress"
(390)
c Belief as byproducts of adaptations- most recent research
o Artifact #7 (Toward an Evolutionary Psychology of Religion and
Personality)- Kirkpatrick
Adaptations- features or traits designed by natural
selection for a particular adaptive function--"are only one product of
evolutionary processes"
Evolution produces byproducts- spandrels and exaptations
Any attempt to identify "the" adaptive function of religion
is likely to explain some aspects of religion but not others--> so it
does not create a full picture to say that belief is an adaptation
Contemporary Evolutionary Perspective: Does not
postulate the existence of any kind of "religious instinct" or
psychological mechanism evolved for the function of producing
specifically religious thought or behavior
 Religion can be understood as a byproduct of a
variety of motivational and cognitive mechanisms that evolved
for other purposes (922)
b 16 strivings for God- humans have the need to satisfy basic desires through belief
a Artifact #4 (The Sixteen Strivings for God)- Reiss
o Theory of Basic Motivation
Sensitivity theory- "sixteen basic desires motivate such of
our behavior including religious behavior" (305).
o What the Basic Desires Are
Desire Profile
Each of 16 basic desires motivate everyone but to a
different extent
Reiss Desire Profile- individual's rank ordering of
the 16 basis desires, a display of an individual's 16 sensitivities
Motives most relevant to defining our personalities
are those that are strong or weak relative to norms (310-311)
o "Religious experiences are well suited to help us regulate these
joys and express the associated core values" (313).
o Basic desires: tranquility, compound motives, vengeance, status,
power, order, independence, honor, family, acceptance
Tranquility: Basic desire for personal safety produces the
joy of relaxation and expresses the value of prudence
People differ in how much risk they take
"Through faith we have the potential to overcome
fear and anxiety and experience tranquility" (317).
o Results from the Study:
showed that how religious people said that they were was
strongly associated with which they were motivated by honor
Also showed that religious people place below-
average value on independence (self-reliance)
Even though this was the case, they showed average
desire for personal power or influence
Above-average motivation in raising a family and
avoiding conflict with self-reported religiosity
Consistent with Christian teachings on the
importance of family and concept of "turning the other
cheek" (318)
b Need to belong--> considered to be most important basic desire attributed to belief
a Artifact #6 (The need to belong can motivate belief in God)- Gebauer and
Maio
o From the four studies, we predicted and found that the belief in
God can be motivated by the desire to satisfy the need to belong via
affiliation with God
o Study 3 showed that the need to belong increases religious
intensity
o These studies document that the idea or image of an accepting
and loving God is not sufficient to elicit belief in God: the existence of God
must also be perceived as plausible (492)
 o The current evidence indicates that it is not sufficient to assume
that the belief in God is simply innate or merely functions as a defense
mechanism- variety of factors is necessary to explain this complex,
enduring, and prevalent belief
2 Conclusion
a Through our basic needs, motivations, attributions, and cognitive thinking styles
humans are able to psychologically analyze belief in God through an objective lens.
b Religious belief is a phenomenon that can be scripturally and subjectively reasoned,
but attributing beliefs to behavioral and cognitive reasons can give a more adaptive
view of the beliefs that many humans hold.
c Belief in a supernatural or God has existed for a long time and it is about time that
researchers and psychologists analyze why humans have these religious aspirations
and beliefs.
d For future research
a Need to look at the psychoanalytical lens--subconscious, would be difficult to
study but also quite insightful into spirits and ghost aspect
b Need to research more about biological areas of the brain that correlate and
keep mounding up evidence that creates an evolutionary basis that is more
sound
c Also need more research in the social psych arena--as well as a little more
behavioral with the basic desires--need to go more in depth with the desires
with studies to back them up