scholarly journals Implicit Cultures:  Towards a Psychosocial Theory of ‘Intuitive Religious Beliefs’

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Timothy J. McVicar
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Developmental Theory ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Theory Of Religion ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Right ◽  
Critical Literature ◽  
Recurrent Set

<p>This thesis defines and resolves some persistent criticisms of Justin Barrett and Jessie Bering’s shared contention that religious beliefs are compelled by ‘default’ cognitive systems. I contend that the source of these criticisms is correctly the ‘naturalness of religious belief’ metathesis. This metathesis justifies the methodological reductions that both use to account for ‘intuitive religious beliefs.’ Through a review of the critical literature sourced from various methodologies including anthropology, hermeneutics, and social neuroscience, I uncover a recurrent set of criticisms that I contend theories of ‘intuitive religion’ need to confront in order to strengthen the theoretical, and by inference, empirical validity of their theories. Yet I also discuss why it is that Bering and Barrett fail to incorporate insights relative to persistent criticisms of their research, emphasising that it is because they fail to see the experimental plausibility of alternative methodologies and theories. Somewhat proactively, I argue that Mathew Day’s proposal for a psychosocial theory of religion offers a step in the right direction. Day’s psychosocial theory rejects the ‘naturalness of religion’ metathesis. My own revision and application of psychosocial theory allows for the reinterpretation of Bering and Barrett’s findings from the vantage point of cultural psychology. I close by offering a developmental theory of ‘intuitive religious beliefs’ that includes the numerous theoretical perspectives addressed throughout this thesis and, crucially, is empirically grounded in research from cultural psychology. I propose a tentative empirical test to trial my claims.</p>

scholarly journals Implicit Cultures:  Towards a Psychosocial Theory of ‘Intuitive Religious Beliefs’

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Timothy J. McVicar
Keyword(s):  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
Developmental Theory ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Theory Of Religion ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Right ◽  
Critical Literature ◽  
Recurrent Set

<p>This thesis defines and resolves some persistent criticisms of Justin Barrett and Jessie Bering’s shared contention that religious beliefs are compelled by ‘default’ cognitive systems. I contend that the source of these criticisms is correctly the ‘naturalness of religious belief’ metathesis. This metathesis justifies the methodological reductions that both use to account for ‘intuitive religious beliefs.’ Through a review of the critical literature sourced from various methodologies including anthropology, hermeneutics, and social neuroscience, I uncover a recurrent set of criticisms that I contend theories of ‘intuitive religion’ need to confront in order to strengthen the theoretical, and by inference, empirical validity of their theories. Yet I also discuss why it is that Bering and Barrett fail to incorporate insights relative to persistent criticisms of their research, emphasising that it is because they fail to see the experimental plausibility of alternative methodologies and theories. Somewhat proactively, I argue that Mathew Day’s proposal for a psychosocial theory of religion offers a step in the right direction. Day’s psychosocial theory rejects the ‘naturalness of religion’ metathesis. My own revision and application of psychosocial theory allows for the reinterpretation of Bering and Barrett’s findings from the vantage point of cultural psychology. I close by offering a developmental theory of ‘intuitive religious beliefs’ that includes the numerous theoretical perspectives addressed throughout this thesis and, crucially, is empirically grounded in research from cultural psychology. I propose a tentative empirical test to trial my claims.</p>

scholarly journals ’n Praktiese-teologiese ondersoek na prediking en die effek van sosiale kognisie in die handeling van kontek-stualisering

2016 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
F.P. Kruger
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Natural Process ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The World ◽  
Church And Society ◽  
Practical Theological ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

A practical theological investigation on preaching and the effect of social cognition in the act of contextualisation. It is indicated in recent research that church and society are conscious of each other through their observation of one another – a process also known as social cognition. This article intends to investigate the manner in which the church is observingsociety. The following research question is stated: Which role can preaching play to foster good neighbourship in society and what is the aspects that influence the cognition of the church as community of believers? This research will be undertaken from a practical-theological vantage point. This field of research shows a tangency with the fields of Ecclesiology and Missiology. From these two fields the importance of the practical-theological field of research will be indicated. This research will further investigate the problematic praxis through an intradisciplinary discourse with the field of Social Psychology. In this exposition it will be indicated that the founding and functioning of social cognition is a natural process although it also has it complexities. From a normative vantage point investigation on Jeremiah 29 and Matthew 5 will be undertaken in order to state that the right cognition is important for internalising sermons and the conveyance of sermons into daily life. Distortions, in the process of social cognition, can also cultivate a wrong view on what it entails to be salt and light in the world. Practical-theoretical perspectives on the benefit of a good name in society will be provided that will be favourable for the preaching of the Word.Keyword: Homiletics

The Priority of Public Reasons and Religious Forms of Life in Constitutional Democracies

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Cristina Lafont
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Public Deliberation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Difficult Question ◽  
Political Deliberation ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
The Right ◽  
Mutual Accountability

In this essay I address the difficult question of how citizens with conflicting religious and secular views can fulfill the democratic obligation of justifying the imposition of coercive policies to others with reasons that they can also accept. After discussing the difficulties of proposals that either exclude religious beliefs from public deliberation or include them without any restrictions, I argue instead for a policy of mutual accountability that imposes the same deliberative rights and obligations on all democratic citizens. The main advantage of this proposal is that it recognizes the right of all democratic citizens to adopt their own cognitive stance (whether religious or secular) in political deliberation in the public sphere without giving up on the democratic obligation to provide reasons acceptable to everyone to justify coercive policies with which all citizens must comply.

Common Sense Propositions

Philosophy ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 48 (186) ◽  
pp. 363-379
Author(s):  
A. C. Ewing
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Physical Object ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Vast Number ◽  
Know How ◽  
Justified Belief ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Right ◽  
Past Experiences

Philosophers have not been sceptical only about metaphysics or religious beliefs. There are a great number of other beliefs generally held which they have had at least as much difficulty in justifying, and in the present article I ask questions as to the right philosophical attitude to these beliefs in cases where to our everyday thought they seem so obvious as to be a matter of the most ordinary common sense. A vast number of propositions go beyond what is merely empirical and cannot be seen to be logically necessary but are still believed by everybody in their daily life. Into this class fall propositions about physical things, other human minds and even propositions about one's own past experiences based on memory, for we are not now ‘observing’ our past. The phenomenalist does not escape the difficulty about physical things, for he reduces physical object propositions, in so far as true, not merely to propositions about his own actual experience but to propositions about the experiences of other human beings in general under certain conditions, and he cannot either observe or logically prove what the experiences of other people are or what even his own would be under conditions which have not yet been fulfilled. What is the philosopher to say about such propositions? Even Moore, who insisted so strongly that we knew them, admitted that we did not know how we knew them. The claim which a religious man makes to a justified belief that is neither a matter of purely empirical perception nor formally provable is indeed by no means peculiar to the religious. It is made de facto by everybody in his senses, whether or not he realizes that he is doing so. There is indeed a difference: while everyone believes in the existence of other human beings and in the possibility of making some probable predictions about the future from the past, not everybody holds religious beliefs, and although this does not necessarily invalidate the claim it obviously weakens it.

The influence of religious/spiritual beliefs on Malaysian hospital healthcare workers’ attitudes towards suicide and suicidal patients: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
pp. 174498712110085
Author(s):  
Ching Sin Siau ◽  
Lei-Hum Wee ◽  
Suzaily Wahab ◽  
Uma Visvalingam ◽  
Seen Heng Yeoh ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare Workers ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Right To Die ◽  
Spiritual Beliefs ◽  
Attitudes Towards Suicide ◽  
Formal Integration ◽  
Professional Care ◽  
The Right ◽  
Medical Disciplines ◽  
Suicidal Patients

Background There has been mixed findings on whether a healthcare workers’ religious beliefs contribute positively or negatively to their attitudes towards suicidal patients. Aims This study aims to explore qualitatively the influence of religious/spiritual beliefs on healthcare workers’ attitudes towards suicide and suicidal patients in the culturally heterogeneous Malaysian population. Methods Thirty-one healthcare workers from diverse religious backgrounds, professions and medical disciplines were interviewed. Thematic analysis revealed the centrality of religion in determining healthcare workers’ acceptability of suicide, specific religious beliefs that influenced their views on the right-to-die issue, perceptions of the suicidal patient’s religiousness/spirituality, and the aspects and extent of religious relevance in professional philosophy and practice. Results Healthcare workers who could perceive the multifactorial nature of suicide causation had a more empathetic response. There were high levels of paternalism in the care of suicidal patients, involving unsolicited religious/spiritual advice practised as a form of suicide deterrent and social support. Conclusions The formal integration of religious/spiritual practices into the professional care of suicidal patients was indicated.

9. Communication and public opinion

UK Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 195-219
Author(s):  
Andrew Blick
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Communication ◽  
Real Life ◽  
View Point ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Democratic System ◽  
The Right ◽  
Political Opinions

This chapter discusses the way in which political ideas are put forward and relates this to the forming and mobilization of political opinions. It looks the forms of communication used, the means of ‘media’ for transmission; the approach that political parties and government take towards it; and the influence it can exert from within the democratic system. The chapter looks at how people transmit information and how organizations do too. An important element of this discussion is how people form political opinions in the first place and how they make decisions based on them. A key question is: how can the right to vote be used to transmit and impact a political view point? The chapter also examines the role of social media and recent phenomena such as ‘fake news’. It also asks: how can public opinion be measured? The chapter provides a number of theoretical perspectives and real-life examples: the ‘Leveson Inquiry’ of 2011–12 and what it revealed about political communication and the online parliamentary petitioning process. Finally, the chapter explores a debate about whether the Internet has made political communication more supportive of democracy.

Culture, Context, and Development

2019 ◽  
pp. 187-208
Author(s):  
Harry W. Gardiner
Keyword(s):  
Cross Cultural Psychology ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Contextual Influences ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Challenges And Opportunities ◽  
Future Path

Cross-cultural psychology and human development are currently experiencing an exciting period of growth. Segall, Lonner, and Berry have noted that when all psychology finally takes into account the effects of culture on human behavior (and vice versa), terms like cross-cultural and cultural psychology will become unnecessary. At that point, all psychology will be truly cultural. In this chapter, the author defines cross-cultural human development; theoretical perspectives and models; emerging themes, such as contextual influences; applications to social issues; and future directions. As the author has earlier stated, tremendous challenges and opportunities lie ahead and speculating about the future path of cross-cultural psychology is difficult.

Tilting the Ethical Lens: Shame, Disgust, and the Body in Question

Hypatia ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 632-650 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ellen K. Feder
Keyword(s):  
Medical Practice ◽  
Medical Management ◽  
The Body ◽  
Moral Significance ◽  
Affective Dimension ◽  
Ethical Approaches ◽  
The Right ◽  
Critical Literature

Cheryl Chase has argued that “the problem” of intersex is one of “stigma and trauma, not gender,” as those focused on medical management would have it. Despite frequent references to shame in the critical literature, there has been surprisingly little analysis of shame, or of the disgust that provokes it. This paper investigates the function of disgust in the medical management of intersex and seeks to understand the consequences—material and moral—with respect to the shame it provokes.Conventional ethical approaches may not provide quite the right tools to consider this affective dimension of the medical management of intersex, but we find in Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morality a framework that allows us a profound appreciation of its moral significance (Nietzsche 1887/1998). Understanding doctors' disgust—and the disgust that they promote in parents of those born with atypical anatomies—as a contemporary expression of ressentiment directs us to not focus on the bodies of those born with intersex conditions, which have been the privileged objects of attention both in medical practice and in criticisms of it, but moves us to consider instead the bodies of those whose responses constitute the motivating force for normalizing practices in the first place.

Foot Performance of Right- and Left-Handers: A Question of Environmental Influence

1995 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 671-674 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carl Gabbard ◽  
Susan Hart
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Influence ◽  
Hand Preference ◽  
Adequate Explanation ◽  
Driving Experience ◽  
Left Hand ◽  
Left Handed ◽  
Right Hand ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Right

Prior research has shown that right-handed adults perform better on a speed-tapping task with the right hand and right foot, while left-handers execute more rapidly with the left hand and right foot. Speculation is that environmental influence, most likely driving experience, may account for the right-foot bias. To examine this hypothesis further, 48 young right- and left-handed children were tested on a similar protocol. Analyses indicated no significant differences in foot performance within hand-preference groups. Since these findings do not complement reports for adults, factors such as experience or maturation might contribute to the difference. Were patterns similar, the effect of environmental influence would be assumed to be small. However, much more evidence is needed before an adequate explanation can be developed. The issue of possible environmental influence is discussed from various theoretical perspectives.

Dying and its Interpreters: A Review of Selected Literature and Some Comments on the State of the Field

1999 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 239-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles A. Corr ◽  
Kenneth J. Doka ◽  
Robert Kastenbaum
Keyword(s):  
Present State ◽  
Developmental Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Future ◽  
And Coping ◽  
State Of The Field

What have been the major theoretical approaches that have been useful in the study of dying to date? What theoretical approaches hold promise for the future? Selected literature on dying and coping with dying is reviewed in an effort to describe the present state of our knowledge in this field and to contribute to an overall theory of dying. Three central topics are 1) awareness of and communication about dying; 2) processes of illness; and 3) coping with dying. Reflections are offered on the kinds[s] of theory that might be desirable in this field, together with a number of lessons that can be drawn from the existing literature. A continued exploration of the ways that theoretical perspectives from psychology and sociology such as developmental theory, Symbolic lnteractionism, or Reconstructism can lead to greater understanding of the dying process.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document