psych 145 ucsb midterm number 2

cognitive impenetrability

Knowledge represented in one system does not always penetrate into other systems. (Why knowing something is an illusion does not make the illusion go away)

biases in detecting relationships from random sequences

1. we tend to look for reasons why there are clusters or patterns (constellations, hot hand in basketball)

2. we are poor at estimating probabilities (lotteries, birthdays)

Which cognitive biases maintain beliefs?

1. Hindsight bias (Feeling of already having known new information)

2. Confirmation Bias (we seek evidence that confirms our hypothesis)

3. Self serving bias (we tend to believe things that we want to be true)

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

When one thing follows another we consider them to be causally linked.

supernatural concept

concepts for which there is no natural scientific evidence/phenomena that violate operate outside of or are distinct from the outside world.

What makes people who claim to have had supernatural experiences different from those who havent

They believe in the possibility of supernatural occurrences while others do not. (there is no psychopathological or self esteem differences)

Five reasons for humans believing in supernatural concepts

1. Pattern detection proneness

2. Intuitions from core knowledge (intuitive physics, biology and psychology)

3. Contextual and cultural support

4. Motivations to seek meaning in the world

5. Unnatural nature of science

core knowledge intuition

a belief that comes from our core knowledge mechanisms about the natural world

Intuitive dualism

Bodies and minds are different which is why some believe in mind/spirit transfer (Core knowledge = Psychology + Physics)

How do we recognize an animate agency? (intuitive psychology)

1. Self propulsion

2. Goal directedness

3. Contingent action

4. Eyes and faces

Why is agency detection hyperactive?

It is safer to make a type 1 error (false alarm) rather than a type 2 error (miss/don't see the twigs as a spider when it is/predator)

Can over-extend to unnecessary domains

(children seeing their shadow as dangerous)

Hyperactive agency detection extends from psychology and physics

Promiscuous teleology (intuitive physics and psychology)

Extending our core knowledge about psychology and physics.

Purpose-based thinking (function understanding depends on combining psychology and physics = there is a reason and purpose for every artifact).

Intuitive essentialism (intuitive biology)

Everything has an internal essence that makes it the way it is (tummies, brains, hearts, organs etc. make us the way we are)

Extended from our core concepts about biology

4 extensions of core knowledge

1. Intuitive dualism

2. Promiscuous teleology

3. Intuitive Essentialism

4. Hyperactive agency detection

New concept creation through core concept modification

We can change the way we view natural objects by adding supernatural essence to them (ex: Magic broomstick instead of just a broomstick allows it to fly around)

Four laws of object motion (intuitive physics)

1. Continuity

2. Solidity

3. Contact

4. Cohesion (triangle doesn't cut itself in half)

Childhood animism

Simple motion cues are equivalent to animate agency in the eyes of young children (ex: Is water alive?... Yes... it moves...)

Goal attribution with children

kids make goal attributions for familiar animate objects such as hands but not for sticks, rods or pinchers (inanimate objects)

What is the face study?

We are faster and better at judging animals as animate when we can see their faces. We are slower and worse as judging objects as non-animate if they have a facelike pattern. This holds true for adults and children

Infants attribution of animate agency: face cues and contingent action

Infants followed the objects gaze if it had a face or if it interacted with them but not if it did neither. (you need interactive action or a facial cue for infants to perceive it as an animate object)

How does belief in the supernatural change your face detection abilities

Those who believe in the supernatural or who are religious have a lower threshold for face detection. (Believers had more facial recognition hits and false alarms in the study) Believers also were more likely to view a light display as a human

Tool use attribution in adults vs kids

Younger kids see the potential broad uses of tools whereas older kids and adults have functional fixedness (see the tool as only having the use the designer intended)

Possible explanation for belief in god

If there is a purpose for things then there must be someone/something that designed them (Bill O'Rilley video)

Over-extension of teleological thinking

- Kids see natural entities as purpose based (bird is there for us to admire)

- Uneducated adults like purposed based explanations too

- Adults placed under a time pressure make more purpose based errors

- Those who believe in fate/destiny are more likely to make purpose based errors

Adult's belief in fate

God believers are most likely to believe in fate (84%)

non believers are also somewhat likely to believe in fate (55%)

ardent athiests are least likely (30%)

Adult's belief in karma

They are more likely to donate to charitable causes when they are primed to think about current life events where a wanted outcome is outside of their control (Ex: job interview)

two laws of sympathetic magic

1. The law of similarity

2. The law of contagion

The law of similarity

Objects that share appearance might share essence, if so they will have related properties (voodoo dolls)

Supernatural beliefs based on the law of similarity

- Photo magic (stab the photo)

- Voodoo dolls

The Law of contagion

Objects that come into contact might transfer their essence into the other object even after they separate

Supernatural beliefs based on the law of contagion

- contaminated road (accidents lead to more accidents)

- Religious relics

- Celebrity contagion (daniel tosh sweatshirt/Pope water glass)

- Kids believe transfer of internal organs will create personality change

Positive vs negative contagion

Positive - more desirable if the object was in contact with a popular favorable person

Negative - not desirable if the object was in contact with an infamous person

Evidence for intuitions about essences

1. Importance of insides (self propelled objects are expected to have insides)

2. Assumption that animal behavior is likely to stem from internal properties (ex: Stomach of the toy)

3. label vs no label in deciding whether the bird/dinosaur eats worms

4. Kids see that animals/animate objects have continuous essences but inanimate objects do not

Sympathetic magic

One thing affects another (essences can be transferred or shared)

Intuitive essentialism is at the heart of sympathetic magic because it states that everything has an essence.

When would the law of similarity fail?

Forged art (two identical art pieces don't share the same essence because they aren't made by the same person)

The law of similarity and attachment objects

We do not want to destroy a photo of objects that have strong meaning to us and when asked to we have strong negative physiological responses. (this arousal is only shown when it is a picture of our actual attachment object)

Boyer's theory of supernatural entities:

we can think abuout things that dent exist irl

5 features of supernatural concept (Boyers template)

Name, concept, violation, default inferences, encyclopedic knowledge (vampire definition)

minimally counterintuitive concepts

concepts that are cognitively optimal meaning they only violate 1 or 2 times (these concepts are better remembered)

Evidence for CI concepts

-memory studies show increase with CI

-children better remember with 1-2 violations but not 3

-we r ember the source of the CI

-CI concepts are less believable then ordinary but remember easier

-folktales have minimal CI stuff, so we better remember it

-

4 features of a good god concept

-intentional agency

-detectable patterns of action in the world

-strategic and morally relevant knowledge

-ability to recruit ritualistic action/behavior

Boyers theory in god concept

concepts from the core intuition may be activated when one reasons about the supernatural

evidence for the imperfect omnipotence

-magic example= harder violation means harder magic trick

children vs adults explicit religious supernatural entity concepts

-adults apply more human properties to fictional rather than religious entities

-the god will always know what's in the box but the mom and smart dude will not

-kids learn that god is omniciencent as they develop

Theological incorrectness (evidence of god as limited)

-disconnect between theology that suggests god has extrodinaty abilities and the everyday phenomena that implies he's limited in ability

-intuitive person concepts interfere with beliefs about god= the intuition and theology is inconsistent

Zeus Problem

-if concepts with certain features drive beliefs than why don't we believe in all gods

-we trust the people in out culture

children and CI content

-kids know that imaginary friends aren't real

-understand multiple distinct pretend worlds such as batman and sponegebob

-KIDS struggle with improbable vs impossible stuff (SANTA CLAUS STUFF= when kids asked to write to santa, they asked about the CI stuff/// adult input supporting the being put weights the skepicism)

Why and how do we learn from other people?

Certain aspects of knowledge are not plausible represented via core knowledge, such as things that might depend on and differ according to the local ecology (what animals are dangerous, what plants are safe to eat etc.) and are not suitable for individual trial and error learning either:

~ One trial long term learning of what animals are dangerous in the US and among the

Shuar, but less effective learning and recall of an animal's name or diet.

~ Core expectation that plants are dangerous ... kinds reluctant to touch them .... BUT

expect plants to be the source of food.... And children direct social looking to adults more

when confronted by plants (than other unfamiliar objects) before they touch them.

Importance of social/pedagogical cues that important generalizable information may follow:

~ direct eye gaze,

~ reference to target of learner,

~ infant directed speech.

who do kids learn from

~ Familiar versus unfamiliar people (study with familiar versus unfamiliar preschool worker)

~ Caregivers (role of attachment)

... secure and resistant kids prefer Mom when the choice is about the name for a toy and there is no information suggesting which label is correct ... avoidant kids show no preference

~ In-group versus out-group members (signaled by language)

~ Prestigious individuals (over those ignored by others) ... specific to domain in which

prestige was established.

~ Learning from high status individuals leads to the possibility of being misled; so learning is

stronger and more credible if model accompanies his or her instruction with 'credible'

displays that would be costly if what he or she is saying is not true. Evidence from food

preferences, donation games with kids.

Existential uncertainty

Belief in supernatural reduces anxiety caused by uncertainty about human existence and by feeling of lack of control over outcomes

terror management theory

is a general theory that adoption and defense of various cultural worldviews and actions to create meaning in life serves a function of protecting against the terror of knowing about one's own mortality

Existential threat in the form of fear of death evidence

i. Mortality salience (priming thoughts of death) increases religiosity, increases

reported explicit belief in God.

ii. Increases in explicit belief is limited to believers (i.e. not shown in atheists), and

affects the level of belief in their own deity.

iii. In agnostics MS increases explicit faith in all higher powers.

iv. Some evidence that MS increases implicit (but not explicit) belief in atheists

death and the denial of future self

-de- emphasize the future self. If you are not continuous with the person you will be in the future, there maybe less reason to fear death.

- DOES NOT WORK (This population is as fearful of death as the others, and MORE fearful of the aspect of death related to the annihilation of the SELF)

Combining existential threat and lack of control

i. Correlation between living in a nation/state with greater existential threat and

more variance in expectations of safety and religious engagement ii. Meaning making in response to uncontrollable and unpredictable natural

disasters ... increased religious engagement post natural disasters, attribution of natural disasters to 'acts of God', especially when personal suffering is experienced or witnessed.

Social isolation and belief in the supernatural

i.

People differ in terms of their 'need to belong' in social groups. People higher on this need have lower thresholds to perceive minds (capacity for agency, experiences) in face/statue morphs; people primed with the idea of isolation see minds more readily than those not primed

ii.

Priming people to think about social isolation increases their belief in supernatural entities (i.e. Gods) as well as their attributions of socially relevant humanlike properties in pets

religious belief in brain responses to error related anxiety

i.

Evidence that religious belief is correlated with less error related negativity (ERN ... a signal of error related anxiety) in the anterior cingulate (ERP studies).

ii.

Implicit priming of religious belief reduces ERN in believers (but not in non- believers)

Would tarzan believe in God?

no, the overal culture would support the beluief but not generate the beleife in god

There is no evidence that belief in the afterlife arises spontaneously in the absence of cultural support

Psychological essentialism

-the dailai lama example, there is an invisible essense to the items that were owned by the previous llama

intuitive vs reflective beliefs

-Intuitive beliefs are formed through simple perceptual and inferential processes. They can also be acquired through communication provided that the information that is communicated is of a kind that could have been acquired through simple perception and inference. For instance, if someone tells you they have a table in their living room, you can form an intuitive belief about the table. Intuitive beliefs are the common stock of our minds, the basic data on which we rely to guide our behavior and inference in everyday life—as do many other animals.

-The word "belief" collapses together at least two functionally different attitudes: intuitive and reflective beliefs

tell society a god is watching

According to one leading theory of the evolution of religion, small-scale societies don't have big gods because there's no community benefit to having deities concerned with moral behavior. In those cultures, there's no anonymity. Your neighbors, friends, and family are always watching and judging, and the danger of a damaged reputation is enough to keep you on the straight and narrow. As societies get larger, there are more opportunities to break bad—steal from complete strangers, for example—and fewer and fewer direct social consequences for doing so. But if everyone took advantage of those newfound opportunities to break the rules, big societies would collapse before they even got started.