A Cognitive Approach to Understanding Religious Violence Open Access
Movens, Scott (2011)
Abstract
Abstract
A Cognitive Approach to Understanding Religious Violence
By Scott Movens
This paper argues that the unitary explanations of religious
violence that dominate current scholarship are inadequate due to
the multiplicity of possible motivations. Instead, this paper
argues that scholars should examine the cognitive biases that
increase the likelihood of religious violence. This approach
provides a more universal and accurate tool for making coherent
explanations of religious violence, as well as being a more
effective starting point for analyzing each individual's choice to
commit religious violence.
The paper starts by analyzing religion's role in inter- and
intra-group relationships through the lens of commitment factors
and essentialism. Through this approach, religion makes hostility
to outsiders much more likely because of the strength of
commitments and levels of trust between members of a particular
religious community. Augmented by the human mind's essentialist
perspective, this paper argues that religion can be a particularly
catalyzing force for both intra- and inter-group violence to
preserve and strengthen bonds of commitments and cooperation.
Further, the paper expands upon religion's role in group relations
but from an individualistic perspective. The section argues that
the idea of God as an agent that has full access to strategic
information about people has significant implications for religious
violence. Seeing God as an agent with complete access to such
information mediates social interactions, gives higher authority to
religious orders, and heightens people's emotional state when
dealing with religion.
The last section takes a biological approach to the issue of
religious violence in analyzing what cognitive factors directly
affect the human propensity to commit religious violence. Humans
typically overdetect agents when explaining phenomena, triggering
the flight-or-fight mentality. Because agent overdetection is a
common aspect of how people analyze events as religious, it may
lead to heightened levels of hostility, increasing the likelihood
of violence
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
I. Introduction............................................................................1
II. Methods................................................................................2
III. Literature Review..................................................................6
IV. The Evolutionary Problem of Religion......................................29
V. Counter-Intuitive Properties....................................................53
VI. Hyperactive Agent Detection Device.......................................68
VII. Conclusion.........................................................................75
VIII. Bibliography......................................................................78
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