Social Cognition Perspective of the Psychology of Religion

<p>An exploration of how psychological mechanisms produce intuitions beliefs behaviors and experiences that are misattributed as being unique outcomes of religious or spiritual influences. Written from a social psychology perspective this book proposes that religious and spiritual content represent one possible interpretation of the output of processes that also produce and govern nonreligious content. <p/> In looking at why people believe in God and why belief in God is often linked with a range of positive outcomes such as prosociality morality health and happiness the author uses a critical lens that challenges past theories of religion's functions and adds new perspectives into a discipline that is often limited by an exclusive focus on evolutionary theory. <p/> This book features several cross-cutting themes-including dual process theory and an exploration of how various social cognition mechanisms and biases can channel or shape religious content-and provides a continuous through-line linking the underlying building blocks of thought as studied in the cognitive sciences of religion (CSR) to specific religious and spiritual concepts using a social cognition lens.</p>