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Beliefs in afterlife as a by-product of persistence judgments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2006

George E. Newman*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, CT06520
Sergey V. Blok*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX78712
Lance J. Rips*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL60208

Abstract:

We agree that supernatural beliefs are pervasive. However, we propose a more general account rooted in how people trace ordinary objects over time. Tracking identity involves attending to the causal history of an object, a process that may implicate hidden mechanisms. We discuss experiments in which participants exhibit the same “supernatural” beliefs when reasoning about the fates of cups and automobiles as those exhibited by Bering's participants when reasoning about spirits.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2006

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