Previous research with adults suggests that a catalog of minimally counterintuitive concepts, which underlies supernatural or religious concepts, may constitute a cognitive optimum, and is therefore cognitively encoded and culturally transmitted more successfully than either entirely intuitive concepts or maximally counterintuitive concepts. The current study examines whether children’s concept...

BACKGROUND Major life changes are among factors that cause anxiety, and one of these changes is surgery. Emotional reactions to surgery have specific effects on the intensity and velocity as well as the process of physical disease. In addition, they can cause delay in patients recovery. This study is aimed at determining the relationship between religious beliefs and preoperative anxiety. MET...

Interestingly, the same group has recently published an 17 pirituality is understood to be a “personal search to undertand final questions about life, itsmeaning, its relationship to acredness or transcendence that may or may not lead to the evelopment of religious practices or formation of religious ommunities”. In contrast, religiousness is the “extension o which an individual believes, follo...

Previous research with adults suggests that a catalog of minimally counterintuitive concepts, which underlies supernatural or religious concepts, may constitute a cognitive optimum and is therefore cognitively encoded and culturally transmitted more successfully than either entirely intuitive concepts or maximally counterintuitive concepts. This study examines whether children's concept recall ...

This article examines the notions of “intuitive” and “counterintuitive” beliefs and concepts in cognitive science of religion. “Intuitive” states are contrasted with those that are products of explicit, conscious reasoning. In many cases the intuitions are grounded in the implicit rules of mental models, frames, or schemas. I argue that the pathway from intuitive to high theological concepts an...

Prior research has found that persons who favor more analytic modes of thought are less religious. We propose that individual differences in analytic thought are associated with reduced religious beliefs particularly when analytic thought is measured (hence, primed) first. The current study provides a direct replication of prior evidence that individual differences in analytic thinking are nega...

It may seem odd to bring up the topic of religious belief in connection with sociology in any way other than to examine examples of specific norms advocated by particular religious traditions. But that is exactly what I intend to do here. My title should be taken in the broadest possible sense. It means to raise the question of how, in general, religious beliefs impact our concepts of social no...

Objective Successful development of tourism in many tourism destinations around the world depends on how to manage tourists’ perceptions by marketing managers and tourism planners. Thus, any information source about the tourists is of high importance that can be used to affect their beliefs towards the religious destinations. Therefore, it is important to identify the formation of such percept...