Item Details

Toward a Cognitive Ecology of Religious Concepts: Evidence from the Tyva Republic

Issue: Vol 1 No. 1 (2013)

Journal: Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion

Subject Areas: Religious Studies Cognitive Studies Linguistics

DOI: 10.1558/jcsr.v1i1.99

Abstract:

Using data collected in the Tyva Republic, the present work sheds light on the dynamic nature of religious cognition. In doing so, it reveals important patterns in the representation and distribution of religious concepts in this remote corner of the globe. This paper first introduces a cognitive ecological account of religion by examining human representational structures and how they interact with features of the environment. It then discusses this interaction in light of some Tyvan folktales followed by a report of how Tyvan spirit-masters’ forms correspond to type of landmark; anthropomorphic spirit-masters are associated with regions whereas zoomorphic spirits are associated with discrete resources. It concludes by highlighting a number of important questions which emerge from a cognitive ecological view of religious concepts.

Author: Benjamin Grant PurzyckI

View Original Web Page

References :

Alba, Joseph W., and Lynn Hasher. 1983. “Is Memory Schematic?” Psychological Bulletin 93(2): 203–231.
Aksyanova, G.A. 2009. “Principal Findings of the Twentieth-Century Population Studies in Tuva.” Archaeology Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia 37(4): 137–145. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.aeae.2010.02.015
Alcorta, Candace, and Richard Sosis. 2005. “Ritual, Emotion, and Sacred Symbols: The Evolution of Religion as an Adaptive Complex.” Human Nature 16(4): 323–359. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12110-005-1014-3
Arnold-Forster, Frances. 1899. Studies in Church Dedications: or, England’s Patron Saints. London: Skeffington and Son, Piccadilly.
Atran, Scott.2002. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Atran, Scott and Ara Norenzayan. 2004. “Religion’s Evolutionary Landscape: Counterintuition, Commitment, Compassion, Communion.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27: 713–770. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X04000172
Atran, Scott, Douglas Medin, Norbert Ross, Elizabeth Lynch, Valentina Vapnarsky, EdilbertoUcan Ek, John Coley, Christopher Timura, and Michael Baran. 2002. “Folkecology, Cultural Epidemiology, and the Spirit of the Commons: A Garden Experiment in the Maya Lowlands, 1991–2001.” Cultural Anthropology 43(3): 421–450.
Barber, Nigel. 2011. “A Cross-National Test of the Uncertainty Hypothesis of Religious Belief.” Cross-Cultural Research 45(3): 318–333. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1069397111402465
Barrett, Justin L. 1999. “Theological Correctness: Cognitive Constraint and the Study of Religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 11: 325–339. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006899X00078
Barrett, Justin L. 1998. “Cognitive Constraints on Hindu Concepts of the Divine.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 37: 608–619. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1388144
Barrett, Justin L. 2004. “Counterfactuality in counterintuitive religious concepts.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27: 731–732. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X04230175
Barrett, Justin L. 2008. “Coding and Quantifying Counterintuitiveness in Religious Concepts: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 20: 308–338. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006808X371806
Barrett, Justin L., and Frank C. Keil. 1996. “Conceptualizing a Nonnatural Entity:
Anthropomorphism in God Concepts.” Cognitive Psychology 31: 219–247. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/cogp.1996.0017
Barrett, Justin L., Emily R. Burdett, and T. J. Porter. 2009. “Counterintuitiveness in Folktales: Finding the Cognitive Optimum.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 9(3): 271–287. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156770909X12489459066345
Beller, Sieghard, Andrea Bender, and Douglas L. Medin. 2012. “Should Anthropology Be Part of Cognitive Science?” Topics in Cognitive Science 4: 342–353. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2012.01196.x
Bender, Andrea, and Sieghard Beller. 2011. “The Cultural Constitution of Cognition: Taking the Anthropological Perspective.” Frontiers in Psychology 2: 1–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00067
Bender, Andrea, Edwin Hutchins, and Douglas Medin. 2010. “Anthropology in Cognitive Science.” Topics in Cognitive Science 2(3): 374–385. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01082.x
Boyer, Pascal. 1996. “What Makes Anthropomorphism Natural: Intuitive Ontology and Cultural Representations.” The Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute 2(1): 83–97. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3034634
Boyer, Pascal. 2001. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Boyer, Pascal. 2008. “Cognitive Tracks of Cultural Inheritance: How Evolved Intuitive Ontology Governs Cultural Transmission.” American Anthropologist 100(4): 876–889. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1998.100.4.876
Boyer, Pascal, and Charles Ramble. 2001. “Cognitive Templates for Religious Concepts: Cross-Cultural Evidence for Recall of Counter-Intuitive Representations.” Cognitive Science 25: 535–564. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2504_2
Bulbulia, Joseph. 2008. “Meme Infection or Religious Niche Construction?: An Adaptationist Alternative to the Cultural Maladaptationist Hypothesis.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 20: 67–107. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157006808X260241
Carey, Susan. 2009. The Origin of Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195367638.001.0001
Chemero, Anthony. 2009. Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Chevalier, Joan F. “Bilingualism and Literacy in the Republic of Tyva.” Sibirica 9(1): 1–22.
Clark, Andy. 2006. “Language, Embodiment, and the Cognitive Niche.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10(8): 370–374. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2006.06.012
Clark, Andy.2008. Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cosmides, Leda, and John Tooby. 2000. Consider the Source: The Evolution of Adaptations for Decoupling and Metarepresentation. In Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. edited by Dan Sperber, 53–115. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
D’Andrade, Roy G. 1981. “The Cultural Part of Cognition.” Cognitive Science 5(3): 179–195. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0503_1
D’Andrade, Roy G.. 1992. “Schemas and Motivation.” In Human Motives and Cultural Models, edited by Roy D’Andrade and Claudia Strauss, 23–44. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139166515.003
D’Andrade, Roy G.. 1995. The Development of Cognitive Anthropology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139166645
Donahoe, Brian R. 2003. A Line in the Sayans: History and Divergent Perceptions of Property among the Tozhu and Tofa of South Siberia. Unpublished Dissertation, University of Indiana.
Durkheim, Émile. 2001 [1915]. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Gonce, L., Upal, M. A., Slone, D. J., and Tweney, D. R. 2006. “Role of Context in the Recall of Counterintuitive Concepts.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 6(3): 521–547. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853706778554959
Harmon-Vukić, Mary, M. Afzal Upal, and Kelly J. Sheehan. 2012. Understanding the memory advantage of counterintuitive concepts. Religion, Brain and Behavior 2(2): 121–139. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2012.672816
Harrison, David. 2000. Topics in the Phonology and Morphology of Tuvan. Doctoral Dissertation, Yale University.
Humphrey, Caroline. 1995. “Chiefly and shamanist landscapes in Mongolia.” In The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space, edited by Eric Hirsch and Michael O’Hanlon, 135–162. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hutchins, Edwin. 1995. Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Hutchins, Edwin. 2010. “Cognitive Ecology.” Topics in Cognitive Science 2(4): 705–715. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765.2010.01089.x
Johnson, Claire V. M., S. W. Kelly, and Paul Bishop. 2010. “Measuring the Mnemonic Advantage of Counter-intuitive and Counter-schematic Concepts.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 10(1): 109–121. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853710X497194
Johnson, Dominic D. P. 2005. “God’s Punishment and Public Goods: A Test of the Supernatural Punishment Hypothesis in 186 World Cultures.” Human Nature 16: 410–446. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12110-005-1017-0
Keil, Frank C. 1996. Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Lahti, David C. 2009. “The Correlated History of Social Organization, Morality, and Religion.” In The Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior, edited by Eckart Voland and Wulf Schiefenhövel, 67–88. New York: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00128-4_5
Laland, Kevin N., John Odling-Smee, and Marcus W. Feldman. 2000. “Niche Construction, Biological Evolution, and Cultural Change.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23: 131–175. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X00002417
Lansing, Stephen J. 1991. Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in the Engineered Landscape of Bali. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lansing, Stephen J., and James N. Kremer. 1993. “Emergent Properties of Balinese Water Temple Networks: Coadaptation on a Rugged Fitness Landscape.” American Anthropologist 95(1): 97–114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.1993.95.1.02a00050
Markov, G. E. 1976. Kochevniki Azii: Struktura khoziaistva obschestvennoi organizatsii [Nomads of Asia: Structure of Household and Collective Organizations]. Izdatelstvo Moskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta.
McCauley, Robert N., and E. Thomas Lawson. 2002. Bringing Ritual to Mind: Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511606410
Norenzayan, A., Scott Atran, Jason Faulkner, and Mark Schaller. 2006. “Memory and Mystery: The Cultural Selection of Minimally Counterintuitive Narratives.” Cognitive Science 30: 1–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog0000_68
Odling-Smee, F. John. 1996. “Niche Construction, Genetic Evolution and Cultural Change.” Behavioural Processes 35: 195–205. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0376-6357(95)00055-0
Pinker, Steven. 2010. “The Cognitive Niche: Coevolution of Intelligence, Sociality, and Language.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (Supplement 2): 8993–8999. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0914630107
Purzycki, Benjamin G. 2010a. “Cognitive Architecture, Humor and Counterintuitiveness: Retention and Recall of MCIs.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 10 (1–2): 189–204. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853710X497239
Purzycki, Benjamin G.. 2010b. “Spirit Masters, Ritual Cairns, and the Adaptive Religious System in Tyva.” Sibirica 9 (2): 21–47. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/sib.2010.090202
Purzycki, Benjamin G.. 2011a. “Humor as Violation and Deprecation: A Cognitive Anthropological
Account.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 11 (1–2): 217–230. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853711X568752
Purzycki, Benjamin G.. 2011b. “Tyvan Cher Eezi and the Socioecological Constraints of Supernatural Agents’ Minds.” Religion, Brain, and Behavior 1(1): 31–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2153599X.2010.550723
Purzycki, Benjamin G., and Tayana Arakchaa. in press. “Ritual Behavior and Trust in the Tyva Republic.” Current Anthropology.
Purzycki, Benjamin G., and Richard Sosis. 2009. “The Religious System as Adaptive: Cognitive Flexibility, Public Displays, and Acceptance.” In The Biological Evolution of Religious Mind and Behavior, edited by Eckart Voland and Wulf Schiefenhövel, 243–256. New York: Springer. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-00128-4_17
Purzycki, Benjamin G.. 2010. “Religious Concepts as Necessary Components of the Adaptive Religious System.” In The Nature of God: Evolution and Religion, edited by Ulrich Frey, 37–59. Marburg: Tectum Verlag.
Purzycki, Benjamin G.. 2011. “Our Gods: Variation in Supernatural Minds.” In Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature, edited by Ulrich J. Frey, Charlotte Störmer and Kai P. Willführ, 77–93. New York: Springer-Verlag. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13968-0_5
Purzycki, Benjamin G., Omar Haque, and Richard Sosis. in press. “Extending Evolutionary Accounts of Religion beyond the Mind: Religions as Adaptive Systems.” In The Evolution of Religion: Critical Perspectives and New Directions, edited by Fraser Watts and Léon Turner.
Purzycki, Benjamin G., Daniel N. Finkel, John Shaver, Nathan Wales, Adam B. Cohen, and Richard Sosis. 2012. “What Does God Know? Supernatural Agents’ Access to Socially Strategic and Nonstrategic Information.” Cognitive Science 36(5): 846–869. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1551-6709.2012.01242.x
Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. 2004. Magic, Miracles, and Religion: A Scientist’s Perspective. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
Pyysiäinen, Ilkka, Marjaana Lindeman, and Timo Honkela. 2003. Counterintuitiveness as the hallmark of religiosity. Religion 33(4): 341–355. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.religion.2003.09.001
Rappaport, Roy A. 1979. Ecology, Meaning, and Religion. Berkeley: North Atlantic Books.
Rappaport, Roy A.. 2000. Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People. Long Grove: Waveland Press.
Roes, Frans L., and Michel Raymond. 2003. “Belief in Moralizing Gods.” Evolution and Human Behavior 24: 126–135. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1090-5138(02)00134-4
Samdan, Zoya. 2004. Chylbyga Ainy Kanchap Syyrypkanyl?: Tyva Ulustung Burung-Chugaalary [How Was the Monster-Moon Chased: Ancient Tales of Tuvan People. Kyzyl: Tyvanyng Nom Üdurer Cheri.
Sanderson, Stephen K. 2008. “Religious Attachment Theory and the Biosocial Evolution of the Major World Religions.” In The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, and Critiques, edited by Joseph Bulbulia, Richard Sosis, Erica Harris, Russell Genet, Cheryl Genet, Karen Wyman, 67–72. Santa Margarita: Collins Foundation Press.
Shariff, Azim, Benjamin G. Purzycki, and Richard Sosis. in press. Religions as cultural solutions to social living. InCohen, A. B. ed. New Directions in the Psychology of Culture. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Slone, D. Jason. 2004. Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Slone, D. Jason, Lauren Gonce, Afzal Upal, Kristin Edwards, and Ryan Tweney. 2007. “Imagery Effects on Recall of Minimally Counterintuitive Concepts.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 7(3): 355–367. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853707X208558
Sneath, David. 1992. “The Obo Ceremony in Inner Mongolia: Cultural Meaning and Social Practice.” In Altaic Religious Beliefs and Practices, edited by Géza Bethlenfalvy, Ágnes Birtalan, Alice Sárközi, and Judit Vinkovics, 309–318. Budapest: Research Group for Altaic Studies.
Sperber, Dan. 1996. Explaining Culture: A Naturalistic Approach. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Stark, Rodney 2001. “Gods, Rituals, and the Moral Order.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 40(4): 619–636. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0021-8294.00081
Strauss, Claudia, and Naomi Quinn. 1997. A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Swanson, Guy E. 1960. The Birth of the Gods: The Origin of Primitive Beliefs. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Thomas, Keith. 1971. Religion and the Decline of Magic. New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons.
Tooby, John, and Irven DeVore. 1987. “The Reconstruction of Hominid Behavioral Evolution through Strategic Modeling.” In Primate Models of Hominid Behavior, edited by W. Kinzey, 183–237. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Tweney, Ryan D., M. Afzal Upal, Lauren O. Gonce, D. Jason Slone, and Kristin Edwards. 2006. “The Creative Structuring of Counterintuitive Worlds.” Journal of Cognition and Culture 6(3): 483–498. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/156853706778554904
Upal, M. Afzal. 2010. “An Alternative Account of the Minimal Counterintuitiveness Effect.” Cognitive Systems Research 11(2): 194–203. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogsys.2009.08.003
Wallace, Anthony F. C. 1966. Religion: An Anthropological View. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Whitehouse, Harvey. 1996. “Rites of Terror: Emotion, Metaphor and Memory in Melanesian Initiation Cults.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2(4): 703–715. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3034304
Whitehouse, Harvey. 2000. Arguments and Icons: Divergent Modes of Religiosity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Whitehouse, Harvey. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
Wilson, David Sloan. 2002. Darwin’s Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226901374.001.0001