Author
Justin L. Barrett
Other affiliations: Calvin College, University of Michigan, Cornell University ...read more
Bio: Justin L. Barrett is an academic researcher from Fuller Theological Seminary. The author has contributed to research in topics: Cognitive science of religion & Counterintuitive. The author has an hindex of 31, co-authored 88 publications receiving 4225 citations. Previous affiliations of Justin L. Barrett include Calvin College & University of Michigan.
Papers published on a yearly basis
Papers
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TL;DR: This review examines recent research into religious rituals, communication and transmission of religious knowledge, the development of god-concepts in children, and the origins and character of religious concepts in adults to support the notion that the cultural phenomena typically labeled as 'religion' may be understood as the product of aggregated ordinary cognition.
584 citations
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01 Jan 2004
TL;DR: The Naturalness of Belief in Gods: An Analog for Understanding Belief in God as mentioned in this paper The naturalness of belief in God is an analog for belief in Minds, and why would anyone not believe in God.
Abstract: 1 Preface 2 What does it mean to "believe"? 3 Where Do Beliefs in Gods Come From? Religious Concepts as Minimally Counterintuitive 4 Where Do Beliefs in Gods Come From? Finding Agents Everywhere 5 Where Do Gods Come From? Additional Factors that Contribute to Gods' Credibility 6 How Religious Actions Enhance Belief in Gods 7 The Naturalness of Belief in God 8 The Naturalness of Believing in Minds: An Analog for Understanding Belief in God 9 Why Would Anyone NOT Believe in God? 10 In Conclusion
562 citations
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TL;DR: By heightening subjects' awareness of their theological beliefs, this work was able to manipulate the degree of anthropomorphization, which indicates that God is unintentionally anthropomorphized in some contexts, perhaps as a means of representing poorly understood nonnatural entities.
551 citations
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TL;DR: This article found that counterintuitive concepts with single expectation-violating features were more successfully transmitted than concepts that were entirely congruent with category-level expectations, even if they were highly unusual or bizarre.
Abstract: The four experiments presented support Boyer’ s theory that counterintuitive concepts have transmission advantages that account for the commonness and ease of communicating many non-natural cultural concepts. In Experiment 1, 48 American college students recalled expectation-violating items from culturally unfamiliar folk stories better than more mundane items in the stories. In Experiment 2, 52 American college students in a modie ed serial reproduction task transmitted expectation-violating items in a written narrative more successfully than bizarre or common items. In Experiments 3 and 4, these e ndings were replicated with orally presented and transmitted stimuli, and found to persist even after three months. To sum, concepts with single expectation-violating features were more successfully transmitted than concepts that were entirely congruent with category-level expectations, even if they were highly unusual or bizarre. This transmission advantage for counterintuitive concepts may explain, in part, why such concepts are so prevalent across cultures and so readily spread.
222 citations
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TL;DR: The results of the study suggest that children do not consistently use human agent concepts but instead can use different agent concepts for some nonhuman agents like God and special animals.
Abstract: Little research exists on how children understand the actions of nonhuman agents. Researchers often assume that children overgeneralize and attribute human properties such as false beliefs to nonhuman agents. In this study, three experiments were conducted to test this assumption. The experiments used 24 children in New York (aged 2,11-6,11 years), 52 children in Michigan (aged 3,5-6,11 years), and a second group of 45 children in Michigan (3,4-8,5 years) from Christian backgrounds. In the first two experiments, children participated in false-belief tests in which they were asked about human and various nonhuman agents including animals and God. Experiment 3 consisted of a modified perspective-taking task, also including nonhuman agents. The results of the study suggest that children do not consistently use human agent concepts but instead can use different agent concepts for some nonhuman agents like God and special animals. Children are not bound to anthropomorphize, but they often do.
208 citations
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01 Jan 1964
TL;DR: In this paper, the notion of a collective unconscious was introduced as a theory of remembering in social psychology, and a study of remembering as a study in Social Psychology was carried out.
Abstract: Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.
5,690 citations
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TL;DR: Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of the authors' brain’s wiring.
Abstract: In 1974 an article appeared in Science magazine with the dry-sounding title “Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases” by a pair of psychologists who were not well known outside their discipline of decision theory. In it Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman introduced the world to Prospect Theory, which mapped out how humans actually behave when faced with decisions about gains and losses, in contrast to how economists assumed that people behave. Prospect Theory turned Economics on its head by demonstrating through a series of ingenious experiments that people are much more concerned with losses than they are with gains, and that framing a choice from one perspective or the other will result in decisions that are exactly the opposite of each other, even if the outcomes are monetarily the same. Prospect Theory led cognitive psychology in a new direction that began to uncover other human biases in thinking that are probably not learned but are part of our brain’s wiring.
4,351 citations
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2,276 citations
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TL;DR: A theory to explain when people are likely to anthropomorphize and when they are not is described, focused on three psychological determinants--the accessibility and applicability of anthropocentric knowledge, the motivation to explain and understand the behavior of other agents, and the desire for social contact and affiliation.
Abstract: Anthropomorphism describes the tendency to imbue the real or imagined behavior of nonhuman agents with humanlike characteristics, motivations, intentions, or emotions. Although surprisingly common, anthropomorphism is not invariant. This article describes a theory to explain when people are likely to anthropomorphize and when they are not, focused on three psychological determinants--the accessibility and applicability of anthropocentric knowledge (elicited agent knowledge), the motivation to explain and understand the behavior of other agents (effectance motivation), and the desire for social contact and affiliation (sociality motivation). This theory predicts that people are more likely to anthropomorphize when anthropocentric knowledge is accessible and applicable, when motivated to be effective social agents, and when lacking a sense of social connection to other humans. These factors help to explain why anthropomorphism is so variable; organize diverse research; and offer testable predictions about dispositional, situational, developmental, and cultural influences on anthropomorphism. Discussion addresses extensions of this theory into the specific psychological processes underlying anthropomorphism, applications of this theory into robotics and human-computer interaction, and the insights offered by this theory into the inverse process of dehumanization.
1,960 citations
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01 Jan 2002TL;DR: Wegner as mentioned in this paper argues that the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain and that it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality.
Abstract: Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will -- those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.
1,814 citations