Learning that there is life after death

Abstract

The present article examines how people's belief in an afterlife, as well as closely related supernatural beliefs, may open an empirical backdoor to our understanding of the evolution of human social cognition. Recent findings and logic from the cognitive sciences contribute to a novel theory of existential psychology, one that is grounded in the tenets of Darwinian natural selection. Many of the predominant questions of existential psychology strike at the heart of cognitive science. They involve: causal attribution (why is mortal behavior represented as being causally related to one's afterlife? how are dead agents envisaged as communicating messages to the living?), moral judgment (why are certain social behaviors, i.e., transgressions, believed to have ultimate repercussions after death or to reap the punishment of disgruntled ancestors?), theory of mind (how can we know what it is "like" to be dead? what social-cognitive strategies do people use to reason about the minds of the dead?), concept acquisition (how does a common-sense dualism interact with a formalized socio-religious indoctrination in childhood? how are supernatural properties of the dead conceptualized by young minds?), and teleological reasoning (why do people so often see their lives as being designed for a purpose that must be accomplished before they perish? how do various life events affect people's interpretation of this purpose?), among others. The central thesis of the present article is that an organized cognitive "system" dedicated to forming illusory representations of (1) psychological immortality, (2) the intelligent design of the self, and (3) the symbolic meaning of natural events evolved in response to the unique selective pressures of the human social environment.

Afterlife beliefs: category specificity and sensitivity to biological priming

“…An increase in continuity judgments by a religious context would be consistent with the theory that afterlife beliefs are acquired through exposure to religious ideas and practices (Bloom, 2007;Harris & Astuti, 2006). An alternative possibility is that responses in one context reflected a default mode of reasoning, while the other context biased responses toward increased continuity or discontinuity reasoning.…”

Children's Earliest Experiences with Death: Circumstances, Conversations, Explanations, and Parental Satisfaction

“…Thus, children held two distinct ways of conceptualizing death, a biological conception and a metaphysical conception. Such findings demonstrate children's ability to reason from different perspectives depending on the story context; as a result, some researchers have suggested that when adults tell children stories about what happens after death, children's understanding of death is sometimes affected (Harris & Astuti, 2006). What is not yet documented in the literature is the way in which children may be learning and creating their personal meanings of death, definitions that may encompass both biological and spiritual or religious ideas.…”

Immortality of the Soul as an Intuitive Idea: Towards a Psychological Explanation of the Origins of Afterlife Beliefs

“…he controversy in the literature about the origin of afterlife beliefs -cognitive predisposition (Bering, 2002(Bering, , 2006Bering and Bjorklund, 2004;Bering et al, 2005) or cultural learning (Harris and Astuti, 2006;Astuti and Harris, 2008) -has been sustained by contradictory findings in developmental as well as cultural data and accentuates the need for more cross-cultural and developmental studies in this area.…”