What Does God Know? Supernatural Agents’ Access to Socially Strategic and Non-Strategic Information

  1. Benjamin G. Purzycki1,
  2. Daniel N. Finkel1,
  3. John Shaver1,
  4. Nathan Wales1,
  5. Adam B. Cohen2,
  6. Richard Sosis1

Article first published online: 29 MAR 2012

DOI: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01242.x

Issue

Cognitive Science

Cognitive Science

Volume 36, Issue 5, pages 846–869, July 2012

Additional Information

How to Cite

Purzycki, B. G., Finkel, D. N., Shaver, J., Wales, N., Cohen, A. B. and Sosis, R. (2012), What Does God Know? Supernatural Agents’ Access to Socially Strategic and Non-Strategic Information. Cognitive Science, 36: 846–869. doi: 10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01242.x

Author Information

  1. 1

    Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut

  2. 2

    Department of Psychology, Arizona State University

* should be sent to Benjamin Purzycki or Richard Sosis, Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 354 Mansfield Road, Storrs, CT 06269-2176. E-mails: benjamin.purzycki@uconn.edu, richard.sosis@uconn.edu

Publication History

  1. Issue published online: 3 JUL 2012
  2. Article first published online: 29 MAR 2012
  3. Received 5 July 2010; received in revised form 25 August 2011; accepted 26 August 2011

SEARCH

SEARCH BY CITATION

ARTICLE TOOLS

View Full Article with Supporting Information (HTML) Get PDF (166K)

Keywords:

  • Cognitive science of religion;
  • Socially strategic information;
  • Supernatural agents;
  • Supernatural punishment;
  • Theory of mind

Abstract

Current evolutionary and cognitive theories of religion posit that supernatural agent concepts emerge from cognitive systems such as theory of mind and social cognition. Some argue that these concepts evolved to maintain social order by minimizing antisocial behavior. If these theories are correct, then people should process information about supernatural agents’ socially strategic knowledge more quickly than non-strategic knowledge. Furthermore, agents’ knowledge of immoral and uncooperative social behaviors should be especially accessible to people. To examine these hypotheses, we measured response-times to questions about the knowledge attributed to four different agents—God, Santa Claus, a fictional surveillance government, and omniscient but non-interfering aliens—that vary in their omniscience, moral concern, ability to punish, and how supernatural they are. As anticipated, participants respond more quickly to questions about agents’ socially strategic knowledge than non-strategic knowledge, but only when agents are able to punish.

View Full Article with Supporting Information (HTML) Get PDF (166K)