Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Epiphenom

Home
About

Home
Nonreligious
Reminding people of mortality makes them more religious? Not if you use magnets to mess with their brains!

Reminding people of mortality makes them more religious? Not if you use magnets to mess with their brains!

Last updated on: November 5, 2015 at 10:45 pm by Epiphenom

Reminding people of mortality makes them more religious? Not if you use magnets to mess with their brains! 2015-11-05T22:45:23+01:00 Epiphenom

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

By using a carefully calibrated magnetic field, you can change the patterns of brain activity. It should come as no surprise, then, that you can actually change the intensity of religious beliefs in this way, at least temporarily.

For example, a recent study found that activating the brain’s parietal lobe (the bit near the top of your head just behind the middle) can make people less religious, probably by sharpening their sense of location (and separation from the wider universe).

But we also know that another region called the prefrontal cortex is important in religious belief, and that’s interesting because it’s a region that’s responsible for a lot of high-level processing – decision making, social interactions, and so on.

Colin Holbrook, at UCLA in the USA, and colleagues want to know if they could tweak the religious response to threatening situations using magnetic stimulation of the prefrontal cortex.

In their study, 38 students were asked to write a few sentences on the subject of their own death. It’s been shown in previous studies that reminding people of their mortality has a number of effects, including strengthening their religious belief.

Then they used a technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to disrupt brain activity in the prefrontal cortex area. The result, as you can see from the graph, is that the strength of religious belief in those who received TMS was lower than in those who did not.

Now, this wasn’t simply a case of reduced brain activity resulting in reduced beliefs of all kind. As part of the same study they also assessed positive attitudes towards foreigners. It increased in those who received TMS.

One possible explanation of these results is that the brain deals with threatening situations by turning to comforting ‘truths‘ – a response known as worldview defence. The idea is that, if you feel threatened, you cling onto beliefs like religion and the rejection of people of different cultures. This response happens in the prefrontal cortex, and the TMS blocks it.

The researchers acknowledge this a a possible explanation, but prefer a different one.

They suggest that what is happening is not a general worldview response, but rather generating specific ‘solutions’ to specific problems. So, get reminded of death – solution is to believe in life after death.

Their evidence for this is that, the effect on belief in Devils/Demons/Hell was not statistically significant, unlike the effect on God/Angels/Heaven. However, a glance at the graphic will tell you that the size of the effect was pretty similar – so it’s probable that the study was simply underpowered to do the kind of analysis they want (and that’s a common problem in psychology studies).

But, regardless of the precise mechanism, it’s clear that something is going on in the prefrontal cortex that ramps up religious belief in response to threatening situations, like being reminded of your mortality.

Holbrook, C., Izuma, K., Deblieck, C., Fessler, D., & Iacoboni, M. (2015). Neuromodulation of Group Prejudice and Religious Belief Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsv107

Causes of religion - psychological

Mortality salience

Neuroscience

Prefrontal cortex

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation

Worldview defence

Previous Post

October 22, 2015

The God-serving bias: thank God if you live, but don't blame God if you die

Next Post

November 10, 2015 Kids in atheist families are more altruistic! The study is sound, but what does it mean?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Causes of religion - evolution Causes of religion - psychological Causes of religion - social Demographics Digest Effects of religion - health Effects of religion - psychological Effects of religion - social Notifications Politics Uncategorized

Select a Month March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What animal spoke to Balaam?

Select your answer to see how you score.

A donkey A dove A lamb A lion