Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Olivera Petrovich
Olivera Petrovich
351-363
UDC 159.9.072:2-12
Olivera Petrovich
nomena. Psychologists cannot overlook that all three sources clearly pertain to the
mind. Thus, to clarify the role of each, including our reasons for performing rituals,
psychological methods of research are needed. Significantly, some contemporary
anthropologists (Boyer, 1994; Guthrie, 1980) acknowledge the limitations of nonpsychological theories purporting to explain origin of religion and cogently argue
for a psychological theory of religion. They recognise that the study of religion cannot advance without a contribution of psychology simply because psychological
questions are different from those asked in the other departments of religious studies. Consider the following examples. When we ask why religious beliefs are both
similar and different across cultures; whether anything in human nature can account
for those similarities; whether people from diverse religious traditions adopt certain
religious beliefs under the same conditions; what experiences, if any, differentiate
prayer from worship, and the like, in all such instances we are asking primarily psychological questions. Psychological explanations are therefore not an alternative
approach to the study of religion but one that is fundamental and necessary. Put
simply, psychological explanations deal with the more basic units of religious phenomena (i.e., at the level of the individual) than those addressed by the other disciplines studying religion (e.g., at the level of history, culture, or social groups). This
is not to say that psychological methods imply or necessarily lead to reductionist
accounts; rather, any complexities can be better accounted for by recognising the
different levels of enquiry contained within them.
Psychological research can therefore make a positive and, indeed, vital contribution to religious studies by showing how the human psychological constitution
underpins religious phenomena and why, in spite of the vast religious-cultural differences, humans from different cultures arrive at some highly similar beliefs of a
religious kind. And vice versa: why, in spite of their major cognitive-psychological
similarities as well as similar cultural influences, human beings often adopt different
religious beliefs and practices. Information of this kind would, de facto, fulfil the
historians ideal of identifying recurrent patterns of religious thought (Smart,
1987) and formulating general considerations on the religious behaviour of man
(Eliade, 1959). In contrast, studying the content of religious beliefs characteristic of
different traditions or recorded in human artefacts with the aim of uncovering something about human nature (Smart, 1990) would do so only indirectly and tentatively.
Our brief review of the main tasks that distinguish psychological from the historical, sociological and anthropological approaches to religion illustrates the importance of delineating clearly the questions and methods of enquiry specific to each
discipline. In particular, it is in the interests of constructive multidisciplinary enquiry to maintain a distinction between religious beliefs characteristic of institutions
(i.e., public, such as those available in texts) and those of the individual (i.e., personal or private). Both kinds of belief are of interest and merit proper explanation
but the methods of enquiry appropriate to each kind are different and their respective findings will have different theoretical implications.
353
Olivera Petrovich
est in the nature of our own mind; nevertheless, explanatory goals require that they
should be clearly differentiated.
Olivera Petrovich
356
Olivera Petrovich
ally deals with how religion began in human history (Totem and Taboo), which
Freud assumed to be a pattern that replicates itself in individual development.
Freuds ideas later influenced several developmental accounts of religion in childhood (e.g., Bovet, 1928; Elkind, 1964; Piaget, 1925; Sully, 1903), all of which take
for granted his assumption that the filial sentiment is the source of personal religion, namely, that parents are our initial deities.
A non-psychological theory of the origin of religion that seems to be consistent
with certain psychological principles is the intellectualist theory (Skorupski,
1976). According to this theory, religious beliefs are plausible hypotheses so that
even primitive religion can be said to be rational. Modern psychology substantially
corroborates emergence of rationality in early development, as findings about childrens scientific and philosophical theories and hypotheses indicate (e.g., Wellman
& Gelman, 1998). To verify Skorupskis intellectualist theory of religion, however,
we need to test empirically a number of psychological questions, which he himself
did not envisage but sought to explain religion as a sociological topic entirely.
If it is indeed most appropriate to tackle the issue of origin of religion by examining individual development, the question arises when humans begin to acquire
religious beliefs. To answer this question adequately, our earlier distinction between
beliefs as doctrines, on the one hand, and beliefs as mental states of ordinary people,
on the other, is of crucial importance. Doctrinal beliefs are transmitted through culture and thus need not be representative of peoples everyday (often spontaneous)
religious understanding. Spontaneous (i.e., untutored) beliefs are of special interest in psychology because they can be triggered by some maturational (i.e., natural
or innate) mechanisms which determine how and when we acquire such beliefs (Petrovich, 2000). The distinction between innate and acquired concepts is an old question that modern psychology has inherited from philosophy and which continues to
be in the centre of modern developmental research (e.g., Elman et al., 1996; Karmiloff-Smith, 1991). Innately prepared concepts not only occur spontaneously in
human development but are also basic or simple, unlike concepts that are transmitted through instruction. Interestingly, the relevance of innateness to religion was
noticed by Otto (1923/1979), who argued that the first and central task of studying
religious behaviour was to establish the development of rudimentary religious concepts, in particular that of the numinous (i.e., the holy), which task he rightly saw to
belong in psychology.
In short, of all the disciplines involved in the study of religion, psychology
alone is explicitly concerned with conceptual development from childhood to adulthood and allows us to examine separately the spontaneous or natural component of
religious thought and experience from the doctrinal or culturally transmitted one.
One way of achieving this is through cross-cultural research whereby we can arrive
at theories that explain different aspects of human religious disposition. In addition
to the question of how people acquire religious beliefs, psychology can contribute to
a better understanding of why people abandon religious beliefs or replace them with
alternative beliefs. Further, psychology can ask whether the same factors cause similar changes in belief at all stages in individual development; whether the same factors are operational in all cultures, including those where religion and science have
had a pattern of interaction different from that in the West (e.g., Japan); and other
358
relevant questions. Joint application of the historical-comparative method and comparative-psychological research would thus significantly strengthen our explanatory
framework for answering many of the perennial questions about religion as a universal phenomenon in human experience.
(2) The controversy regarding the existence of any core religious beliefs or
concepts has been prominent in religious studies. Scholars from a variety of backgrounds have persuasively argued their particular stance on this issue and opposing
schools of thought have emerged. There is, however, a major difference in the understanding of what constitutes core religious concepts in religious studies, on the
one hand, and in psychology, on the other. Whilst scholars of religion debate
whether or not there are any common doctrinal beliefs across different religious
traditions, the current psychological view is that core (or foundational) concepts are
those very basic conceptual categories that underpin our learning and knowledge
acquisition in a particular domain. Examples of psychological core concepts include
object, space, time, and quantity. Such concepts are thought to emerge spontaneously and early in development, are simple, and likely to be found in all cultures
(e.g., Wellman & Gelman, 1998). Moreover, core concepts are few in number and
psychologists have so far examined mainly those that occur in the physical domain.
The issue whether any concepts or beliefs constitute a core component of religion
itself is a researchable question and as such ought to be verified empirically. The
ongoing controversy regarding the existence of such concepts will continue as long
as no distinction is made between religious beliefs of ordinary individuals, especially in their early development, and those beliefs that are recorded in religious and
historical texts, usually as a result of a prolonged scholarly effort.
(3) Universality of religious beliefs is an issue that is closely linked with that
of core beliefs and has consequently been an important topic in comparative religion. The comparative approach as a historical method aims to detect similarities and
differences between doctrines and rituals characteristic of diverse traditions in order
to determine any universally occurring patterns of religious thought in the history of
religious ideas. As already mentioned in this article, historical accounts include
some psychological theorising as well. In other words, when using the comparative
approach, historians of religion do not adhere strictly to textual analysis but often
adopt an implicitly empirical, i.e., psychological, approach. Their actual approach
fluctuates between explaining the text, as a set of formalised beliefs, on the one
hand, and construing a wider meaning of those beliefs for ordinary individuals in
response to such doctrines, on the other. It is important to recognise, however, that
the hermeneutic approach, although challenging and creative for students of religious traditions, is insufficient to show if there are any universal religious beliefs in
the human population. For texts are typically produced by sustained intellectual effort of a small number of specialists and as such need not be representative of the
beliefs of ordinary individuals. To establish whether members of the human population universally hold any particular religious beliefs, we also need methods of research that are used in cognitive and developmental psychology when dealing with
large numbers of participants.
359
Olivera Petrovich
The possibility that some religious beliefs are universal (e.g., basic belief in a
non-anthropomorphic God as creator of the natural world) seems to have a stronger
empirical foundation than could be inferred from religious texts (Barrett, 2001; Petrovich, 1997, 1999; 2000). Some of the initial findings of research into early religious understanding are consistent with other areas of developmental research
which suggest that there are cognitive universals in a number of domains of human
knowledge (e.g., R. Gelman, 1990; Spelke, 1988; Wellman & S. Gelman, 1998).
Search for invariants in human religious cognition requires data from children and
adults alike as well as comparisons between individuals from different cultures (Petrovich, 2000). Such evidence is relevant because it contributes towards establishing
criteria or empirical conditions under which humans show a reliable tendency to
think in terms of some basic religious categories such as God or the transcendent. It
is a mainstream psychological position that human behaviour is not infinitely variable (Broadbent, 1961) but can be reliably linked to certain empirical conditions,
including those that give rise to abstract concepts where religious concepts belong.
REFERENCES
Argyle, M. & Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1975). The social psychology of religion. London,
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Barrett, J. (2001). Do children experience God as adults do? In J. Andresen (Ed.).
Religion in mind: Cognitive perspectives on religious belief, ritual, and experience. New York, Cambridge University Press.
Beit-Hallahmi, B. & Argyle, M. (1997). The psychology of religious behaviour, belief and experience. London, Routledge.
Bovet, P. (1928). The childs religion. London & Co.
Boyer, P. (1994). The naturalness of religious ideas: A cognitive theory of religion.
Berkely, University of California Press.
Broadbent, D. E. (1961). Behaviour. London, Methuen & Co.
Brown, L. (1988). The psychology of religion: An introduction. SPCK.
Combermere, M. (1990). Religious studies in adult and continuing education. In U.
King (Ed.) Turning points in religious studies. Edinburgh, T & T Clark.
Eliade, M. (1959). Methodological remarks on the study of religious symbolism. In
M. Eliade & J. Kitagawa (Eds.) The history of religions: Essays in methodology. Chicago, The University of Chicago Press.
Elkind, D. (1964). Piagets semi-clinical interview and the study of spontaneous
religion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 4, 40 47.
Gelman, R. (1990). First principles organise attention to and learning about relevant
data: Number and the animate-inanimate distinction as examples. Cognitive Science, 14, 79-106.
Guthrie, S. (1980). A cognitive theory of religion. Current Anthropology, 21(2),
181-203.
360
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1991). Beyond modularity: Innate constraints and developmental change. In S. Carey & R. Gelman (Eds.) The epigenesis of mind: Essays
on biology and cognition. Hillsdale, Erlbaum.
Morris, B. (1987). Anthropological studies of religion: An introductory text. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Nisbet, R. (1987). Sociology and religion. In M. Eliade (Ed.). The encyclopedia of
religion. New York, Macmillan Publishing Company.
Otto, R. (1923/1979). The idea of the holy. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Petrovich, O. (1994). Religious education without psychology. Aspects of Education, 51, 117-122.
Petrovich, O. (1997). Childrens understanding of non-natural causality: A case
against artificialism. Psyche en Geloof, 8, 151-165.
Petrovich, O. (1999). Preschool childrens understanding of the dichotomy between
the natural and the artificial. Psychological Reports, 84, 3-27.
Petrovich, O. (2000). Continuities and discontinuities in religious development:
Life-span and cross-cultural perspectives. Invited lecture given at the 47th Annual IRAS Conference, Star Island, USA.
Piaget, J. (1925). La representation du monde chez lenfant. Revue de Theologie et
de Philosophie, 13, 191-214.
Segal, R. A. (1989). Religion and the social sciences. Atlanta, Scholars Press.
Segal, R. A. (2000). Jungs psychologising of religion. In S. Sutcliffe & M. Bowman (Eds.) Beyond new age: Exploring alternative spirituality. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press.
Skorupski, J. (1976). Symbol and theory: A philosophical study of theories of religion in social anthropology. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press..
Smart, N. (1987). Comparative-historical method. In M. Eliade (Ed.) The encyclopedia of religion. New York, Macmillan Publishing Company.
Smart, N. (1990). Concluding reflections: Religious studies in global perspective. In
U. King (Ed.) Turning points in religious studies. Edinburgh, T & T Clarke.
Spelke, E. (1988). The origins of physical knowledge. In L. Weiskrantz (Ed.).
Thought without language. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Sully, J. (1903). Studies in childhood. Longmans, Green, & Co.
Wellman, H. M. & Gelman, S. A. (1998). Knowledge acquisition in foundational
domains. In D. Kuhn & R. Siegler (Eds.) Handbook of child development: Cognition, perception, and language (5th ed.). New York, Wiley.
361
Olivera Petrovich
REZIME