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How does azar’s article relate to Human Religious Experience.

How does azar’s article relate to Human Religious Experience.

Ciccarelli: Psychology_5 (5th Edition)
Ciccarelli: Psychology_5 (5th Edition)
5th Edition
ISBN:9780134477961
Author:Saundra K. Ciccarelli, J. Noland White
Publisher:Saundra K. Ciccarelli, J. Noland White
Chapter1: The Science Of Psychology
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How does azar’s article relate to Human Religious Experience.
I'm unable to transcribe the exact text from the image you provided, but I can summarize its content for inclusion on an educational website. --- ### Summary: Understanding the Role of Meditation and Religion in Brain Function and Social Behavior #### Meditation and Brain Function Research indicates that meditation can alter brain circuits involved in emotion and attention. Specific brain regions, like the anterior cingulate cortex, are activated, leading to a "relaxed alertness" or a “felt ah-ha” sensation. #### Religion’s Impact on Brain and Behavior Studies show that religious practices might also change brain circuits, offering people a greater sense of calm and resilience under pressure. Religious beliefs correlate with reduced depression and anxiety levels, along with longer life spans. #### Pro-Sociality and Religion Religion fosters pro-social behavior, encouraging charity and community involvement. Experiments suggest that religious individuals often exhibit more cooperative behavior in economic games, possibly due to moral surveillance associated with religious beliefs. #### The Evolutionary Role of Religion Religion may have evolved to support larger social structures and moral systems. It fosters cooperation and trust within communities, providing a framework for mutual respect and ethical conduct. --- This synopsis can be used as a starting point for more detailed articles on the effects of meditation and religion on psychological and social behavior.
Transcribed Image Text:I'm unable to transcribe the exact text from the image you provided, but I can summarize its content for inclusion on an educational website. --- ### Summary: Understanding the Role of Meditation and Religion in Brain Function and Social Behavior #### Meditation and Brain Function Research indicates that meditation can alter brain circuits involved in emotion and attention. Specific brain regions, like the anterior cingulate cortex, are activated, leading to a "relaxed alertness" or a “felt ah-ha” sensation. #### Religion’s Impact on Brain and Behavior Studies show that religious practices might also change brain circuits, offering people a greater sense of calm and resilience under pressure. Religious beliefs correlate with reduced depression and anxiety levels, along with longer life spans. #### Pro-Sociality and Religion Religion fosters pro-social behavior, encouraging charity and community involvement. Experiments suggest that religious individuals often exhibit more cooperative behavior in economic games, possibly due to moral surveillance associated with religious beliefs. #### The Evolutionary Role of Religion Religion may have evolved to support larger social structures and moral systems. It fosters cooperation and trust within communities, providing a framework for mutual respect and ethical conduct. --- This synopsis can be used as a starting point for more detailed articles on the effects of meditation and religion on psychological and social behavior.
**American Psychological Association** **A Reason to Believe** Religion may fill the human need for finding meaning, sparing us from existential angst while also supporting social organization, researchers say. By Beth Azar December 2010, Vol 41, No. 11 Print version: page 52 1 min read Harking back to Sigmund Freud, some psychologists have characterized religious beliefs as pathological, seeing religion as a malignant social force that encourages irrational thoughts and behavior. Of course, psychologists’ doubts—and those of countless others throughout history—haven’t curtailed religion’s powerful hold on humans. Religion has endured and thrived for more than 100,000 years. It exists in every culture, with more than 95 percent of the world’s population embracing some sort of religious belief. Researchers who study the psychology and neuroscience of religion are helping to explain why such beliefs are so enduring. They’re finding that religion may, in fact, be a byproduct of the way our brains work, providing core cognitive tendencies to seek order from chaos, to anthropomorphize our environment and to believe the world around us has an intentional agent behind it. Religion has survived, they surmise, because it helped us form increasingly larger social groups, bound together by common beliefs. “We’re on the right track with this byproduct idea—and these findings are really getting stronger … it’s hard to think that the idea that religion is a pathology,” says psychologist Justin Barrett, PhD, director of the cognition, religion and theology project in the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at Oxford University. **Predisposed to believe** There’s no one cognitive tendency that undergirds all our religious beliefs, says Barrett. “It’s really your basic, garden-variety cognition that provides the impetus for religious belief,” he says. A common thread in those cognitions is that they tend to see the world as a place with an overlaying design, evidence of someone or something creating. These suggestions imply that children who are raised in an environment devoid of religious concepts will still often intuitively see a world filled with purpose. Additionally, Barrett’s research finds that even though core assumptions about minds being fundamentally real and separable from the body—something that’s part of many religious beliefs—are formed early and without intentional teaching, people are deeply intuitive of minds continuing to exist even after bodily death. People also have a bias for believing in the supernatural, says Barrett. In his work, he finds that children as
Transcribed Image Text:**American Psychological Association** **A Reason to Believe** Religion may fill the human need for finding meaning, sparing us from existential angst while also supporting social organization, researchers say. By Beth Azar December 2010, Vol 41, No. 11 Print version: page 52 1 min read Harking back to Sigmund Freud, some psychologists have characterized religious beliefs as pathological, seeing religion as a malignant social force that encourages irrational thoughts and behavior. Of course, psychologists’ doubts—and those of countless others throughout history—haven’t curtailed religion’s powerful hold on humans. Religion has endured and thrived for more than 100,000 years. It exists in every culture, with more than 95 percent of the world’s population embracing some sort of religious belief. Researchers who study the psychology and neuroscience of religion are helping to explain why such beliefs are so enduring. They’re finding that religion may, in fact, be a byproduct of the way our brains work, providing core cognitive tendencies to seek order from chaos, to anthropomorphize our environment and to believe the world around us has an intentional agent behind it. Religion has survived, they surmise, because it helped us form increasingly larger social groups, bound together by common beliefs. “We’re on the right track with this byproduct idea—and these findings are really getting stronger … it’s hard to think that the idea that religion is a pathology,” says psychologist Justin Barrett, PhD, director of the cognition, religion and theology project in the Centre for Anthropology and Mind at Oxford University. **Predisposed to believe** There’s no one cognitive tendency that undergirds all our religious beliefs, says Barrett. “It’s really your basic, garden-variety cognition that provides the impetus for religious belief,” he says. A common thread in those cognitions is that they tend to see the world as a place with an overlaying design, evidence of someone or something creating. These suggestions imply that children who are raised in an environment devoid of religious concepts will still often intuitively see a world filled with purpose. Additionally, Barrett’s research finds that even though core assumptions about minds being fundamentally real and separable from the body—something that’s part of many religious beliefs—are formed early and without intentional teaching, people are deeply intuitive of minds continuing to exist even after bodily death. People also have a bias for believing in the supernatural, says Barrett. In his work, he finds that children as
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