God's mind on morality

Abstract

Most research on cognition behind religious belief assumes that understanding of other minds is culturally uniform and follows the Western model of mind, which posits that (a) others' thoughts can be known and (b) action is best explained by mental state inference. This is potentially problematic if, as a growing body of evidence suggests, other populations view minds differently. We recruit Indigenous iTaukei Fijians who hold (a) a model of mind that discourages mental state inference and (b) co-existing Christian (Western) and traditional supernatural agent beliefs. Study 1 (N = 108), uses free-listing to examine how Western and local models of mind relate to beliefs. The Christian God cares about internal states and traits (aligning with the Western model of mind). Study 2 tests whether evoking God triggers intent focus in moral reasoning. Instead, God appears to enforce cultural models of mind in iTaukei (N = 151) and North Americans (N = 561). Expected divine judgement mirrors human judgement; iTaukei (N = 90) expect God to emphasise outcome, while Indo-Fijians (N = 219) and North Americans (N = 412) expect God to emphasise intent. When reminded to think about thoughts, iTaukei (N = 72) expect God to judge outcomes less harshly. Results suggest cultural/cognitive co-evolution: introduced cultural forms can spread new cognitive approaches, while Indigenous beliefs can persist as a reflection of local institutions.

Keywords: Moral reasoning; cognitive anthropology; cultural evolution; culture and cognition; culture cognition co-evolution; social cognition; supernatural agent belief.

Graphical abstract

Figure 1.

Cross-societal responses when asked vs. not asked about God while judging moral vignettes; asking about God enforces intent in North America and outcome in Yasawa (iTaukei Fijians).

Figure 2.

Expected divine punishment by society based on (a) actor intent and (b) victim outcome. Yasawans expect God to punish bad outcomes more than bad intentions, in line with their personal judgements (see McNamara et al. 2019).

Figure 3.

Expected divine punishment by action or thought prime based victim outcome for those reminded of the Christian God (a) and Kalou-vu (b). The thought/action prime had a significant effect when asked about Christian God, but not Kalou-vu. God is expected to punish bad outcomes significantly more when reminded of actions but not thoughts; Kalou-vu show the opposite effect.