Believing

by Michael McGuire

  4. B. Y. Hayden et al., “Fictive Reward Signals in the Anterior Cingulated Cortex,” Science 324 (2009): 948–50.

  5. Stuber, “Reward-Predictive Cues Enhance Excitatory Synaptic Strength.”

  6. G. Lawton, “Let’s Get Personal,” New Scientist, September 13, 2003.

  7. P. Brugger, “Normal Beliefs Linked to Brain Chemistry,” New Scientist, July 27, 2002.

  8. F. Van der Veen, “Blame Serotonin Levels for Being a Crybaby,” Times of India, September 10, 2010.

  9. J. W. Buckholtz et al., “Dopaminergic Network Differences in Human Impulsivity,” Science 329 (2010): 532; see also J. H. Kelsoe, “A Gene for Impulsivity,” Nature 468 (2010): 1049–50; and L. Bevilacqua et al., “A Population-Specific HTR2B Stop Condon Predisposes to Severe Impulsivity,” Nature 468 (2010): 1061–66.

  10. L. Pessoa, “Seeing the World in the Same Way,” Science 303 (2004): 1617–18.

  11. D. Lewis-Williams and D. Pearce, Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods (London: Thames and Hudson, 2005).

  12. H. B. Linton and R. J. Langs, “Subjective Reactions to Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD-25),” Archives of General Psychiatry 6 (1962): 352–58; see also M. M. Katz et al., “Characterizing the Psychological State Produced by LSD,” Abnormal Psychology 73 (1968): 1–14.

  13. B. E. Depue et al., “Prefrontal Regions Orchestrate Suppression of Emotional Memories via a Two-Phase Process,” Science 317 (2007): 215–19; see also M. P. Walker et al., “Dissociable Stages of Human Memory Consolidation and Reconstruction,” Nature 425 (2003): 616–20; and J. L. C. Lee et al., “Independent Cellular Processes for Hippocampal Memory Consolidation and Reconsolidation,” Science 304 (2004): 839–43.

  14. M. Balter, “Did Working Memory Spark Creative Culture?” Science 328 (2010): 160–63.

  15. P. Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).

  16. L. Backman et al., “Effects of Working-Memory Training on Striatal Dopamine Release,” Science 333 (2011): 718.

  17. M. Ohbayashi et al., “Conversion of Working Memory to Motor Sequence in the Monkey Premotor Cortex,” Science 301 (2010): 233–36.

  18. J. Kagan, Surprise, Uncertainty, and Mental Structures (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).

  19. C. A. Anderson, “Belief Perseverance,” in Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, ed. R. F. Baumeister and K. D. Vohs (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007), pp. 109–10.

  20. M. R. Roesch and C. R. Olson, “Neuronal Activity Related to Reward Value and Motivation in Primate Frontal Cortex,” Science 304 (2004): 307–10; see also Eagleman, “Where and When of Intention”; and Cisek and Kalaska, “Neural Correlates of Mental Rehearsal in Dorsal Premotor Cortex.”

  21. J. G. Frazer, The New Golden Bough (1890; repr., New York: Criterion Books, 1959); see also D. Park, The Grand Contraption: The World of Myth, Number and Chance (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

  22. L. Tiger and M. McGuire, God’s Brain (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010).

  23. Kagan, Surprise, Uncertainty, and Mental Structures.

  24. J. D. Cohen and G. Aston-Jones, “Decision amid Uncertainty,” Nature 436 (2005): 472; see also E. J. Hermans et al., “Stress-Related Noradrenergic Activity Prompts Large-Scale Neural Network Reconfiguration,” Science 334 (2011): 1151–53; and Tiger and McGuire, God’s Brain.

  CHAPTER 13. THEORY OF MIND, MIRRORING, AND ATTRIBUTION

  1. L. B. Steadman et al., “Toward a Testable Definition of Religious Behavior,” in The Biology of Religious Behavior, ed. J. Feierman (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009), pp. 20–35.

  2. J. Beahrs, personal communication with the author.

  3. R. Dunbar, “Evolution of the Social Brain,” Science 302 (2003): 1160–61; see also G. Miller, “Reflecting on Another’s Mind,” Science 308 (2005): 945–47.

  4. M. Shermer, The Believing Brain (New York: Times Books, 2011), p. 3.

  5. D. D. Hotto, “Folk Psychological Narratives,” (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008).

  6. S. Baron-Cohen, “Precursors to a Theory of Mind: Understanding Attention in Others,” in Natural Theories of Mind: Evolution, Development and Simulation of Everyday Mindreading, ed. A. Whiten (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), pp. 233–51; see also A. N. Meltzoff, “Imitation as a Mechanism of Social Cognition: Origins of Empathy, Theory of Mind, and the Representation of Action,” Handbook of Childhood Cognitive Development, ed. U. Goswami (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2002), p. 6–25.

  7. Meltzoff, “Imitation as a Mechanism of Social Cognition.”

  8. F. C. Keil, “Science Starts Early,” Science 331 (2011): 1022–23; see also A. Meltzoff, “Understanding the Intentions of Others: Re-enactment of Intended Acts by 18-Month-Old Children,” Developmental Psychology 31 (1995): 838–50; J. Perner et al., “Identity: Key to Children’s Understanding of Belief,” Science 333 (2011): 474–77; and C. Zimmer, “How the Mind Reads Other Minds,” Science 309 (2003): 1079–80.

  9. R. A. Spitz, “Hospitalism—An Inquiry into the Genesis of Psychiatric Conditions in Early Childhood,” Psychoanalytic Study of the Child 1 (1945): 53–74.

  10. H. Harlow, “Maternal Behavior of Rhesus Monkeys Deprived of Mothering and Peer Associations in Infancy,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 110 (1959): 421–32.

  11. A. Leslie and L. Thaiss, “Domain Specificity in Conceptual Development,” Cognition 43 (1992): 225–51; see also S. Baron-Cohen et al., “Does the Autistic Child Have a ‘Theory of Mind’?” Cognition 21 (1985): 37–46; and B. Hare et al., “Do Chimpanzees Know What Conspecifics Know and Do Not Know?” Animal Behavior 61 (2001): 139–51.

  12. D. G. Premack and C. Woodruff, “Does the Chimpanzee Have a Theory of Mind?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1 (1978): 515–26; see also R. Dunbar, “Can You Guess What I’m Thinking?” New Scientist, June 12, 2004; and J. N. Wood et al., “The Perception of Rational, Goal-Directed Action in Nonhuman Primates,” Science 317 (2007): 1402–1405.

  13. G. Miller, “Probing the Social Brain,” Science 312 (2006): 838–39.

  14. E. Anderson et al., “The Visual Impact of Gossip,” Science 332 (2011): 1446–48.

  15. S. Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (London: Allen Lane, 2002).

  16. A. Gopnik, The Philosophical Baby (London: Bodley Head, 2010).

  17. G. Rizzolatti and C. Sinigaglia, Reflecting on the Mind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); see also L. Sanders, “Mirror System Gets an Assist,” Science News, August 13, 2011; and L. Sanders, “Brain’s Mirror System Does the Robot,” Science News, May 7, 2011.

  18. P. S. Churchland, Braintrust (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011).

  19. K. Nakahara and Y. Miyashita, “Understanding Intentions: Through the Looking Glass,” Science 308 (2005): 644–45; see also L. Fogassi et al., “Parietal Lobe: From Action Organization to Intention Understanding,” Science 308 (2005): 662–66; and Rizzolatti and Sinigaglia, Reflecting on the Mind.

  20. T. Singer et al., “Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but Not the Sensory Components of Pain,” Science 303 (2004): 1157–62; see also Sanders, “Brain’s Mirror System Does the Robot.”

  21. N. I. Eisenberger et al., “Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion,” Science 302 (2003): 290–92; see also J. Panksepp, “Feeling the Pain of Social Loss,” Science 302 (2003): 237–39; G. MacDonald and M. R. Leary, “Why Does Social Exclusion Hurt? The Relationship between Social and Physical Pain,” Psychological Bulletin 131 (2005): 202–23; and Singer, “Empathy for Pain Involves the Affective but Not the Sensory Components of Pain.”

  22. Miller, “Reflecting on Another’s Mind.”

  23. S. A. J. Birch and P. Bloom, “The Curse of Knowledge in Reasoning about False Beliefs,” Psychological Science 18 (June 2007), http://psychologicalscience.org/ (accessed April 9, 2010).

  24. Miller, “Reflecting on Another’s Mind.”

  25. L. Festinger, A Theory of Co
gnitive Dissonance (Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson, 1957).

  26. T. Tremlin, Minds and Gods: The Cognitive Foundations of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); see also E. Pronin, “How We See Ourselves and How We See Others,” Science (2008): 1177–80; and D. R., “The Functions of Attributions,” Social Psychology Quarterly 43 (1980): 184–89.

  27. Shermer, Believing Brain.

  28. Tremlin, Minds and Gods.

  29. Pronin, “How We See Ourselves and How We See Others.”

  30. Forsyth, “Functions of Attributions.”

  31. M. Walker, “Folk Medicine Poses Global Threat to Primate Species,” Earth News, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8589000/8589551.stm (accessed June 8, 2013).

  32. A. Powell et al., “Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior,” Science 324 (2009): 1298–1301.

  CHAPTER 14. STORIES AND MODELS

  1. D. Bickerton, Adam’s Tongue (London: Hill and Wang, 2010).

  2. J. Price, “The Adaptiveness of Changing Religious Belief Systems,” in The Biology of Religious Behavior, ed. J. Feierman (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2009), pp. 175–89.

  3. J. Beahrs, personal communication with the author.

  4. G. Currie, Narratives and Narrators (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  5. J. D. Karpicke and J. R. Blunt, “Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning Than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping,” Science 331 (2011): 772–75.

  6. B. J. Richmond et al., “Predicting Future Rewards,” Science 301 (2003): 179–80; see also K. Matsumoto et al., “Neuronal Correlates of Goal-Based Motor Selection in the Prefrontal Cortex,” Science 301 (2003): 229–32.

  7. J. Josipovici, What Ever Happened to Modernism? (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).

  8. K. D. Harrison, When Languages Die (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).

  9. V. Stauffer, The Bavarian Illuminati in America (1918; repr., Minecola, NY: Dover, 2006).

  10. M. Jolly, Faces of the Living Dead (West New York, NJ: Mark Batty, 2006).

  11. N. Abe et al., “Deceiving Others: Distinct Neural Responses of the Prefrontal Cortex and Amygdala in Simple Fabrication and Deception with Social Interactions,” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 19 (2007): 287–95.

  12. R. C. Malenka and R. Malinow, “Recollection of Lost Memories,” Nature 469 (2011): 44–45.

  13. J. Feierman, personal communication with the author.

  14. M. Saunders, Self Impression (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  15. Ibid.; see also G. Levin, “A Dive into the Deep Self,” Times Literary Supplement, April 9, 2010; and J. L. Borges, On Argentina (New York: Penguin Classic, 2010).

  16. M. M. Hurley et al., Inside Jokes: Using Humor to Reverse-Engineer the Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011).

  17. M. de Villiers and S. Hirtle, Timbuktu (New York: Walker, 2007).

  18. M. D. Jackson, Social and Economic Networks (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).

  19. P. Bloom, Descartes’ Baby (New York: Free Press, 2004).

  20. H. Gweon and L. Schulz, “16-Month-Olds Rationally Infer Causes of Failed Actions,” Science 332 (2011): 1524.

  21. B. Bower, “Kids Perceive Ownership Principles,” Science News, June 18, 2011.

  22. B. Bower, “Geometry Comes Naturally to the Unschooled Mind,” Science News, June 18, 2011.

  23. F. C. Keil, “Science Starts Early,” Science 331 (2011): 1022–23; see also S. Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (London: Allen Lane, 2002).

  24. M. R. Roesch and C. R. Olson, “Neuronal Activity Related to Reward Value and Motivation in Primate Frontal Cortex,” Science 304 (2004): 307–10; see also G. D. Stuber et al., “Reward-Predictive Cues Enhance Excitatory Synaptic Strength onto Midbrain Dopamine Neurons,” Science 321 (2008): 1690–92; Richmond, “Predicting Future Rewards”; and Matsumoto, “Neuronal Correlates of Goal-Based Motor Selection in the Prefrontal Cortex.”

  25. B. R. J. Jansen et al., “Rule Transition on the Balance Scale Task: A Case Study of Belief Change,” Synthese 155 (March 2007), http://springerlink.com/content/m24410u27322557q/ (accessed April 3, 2010).

  26. P. Berkes et al., “Spontaneous Cortical Activity Reveals Hallmarks of an Optimal Internal Model of the Environment,” Science 331 (2011): 83–87.

  27. M. Ohbayashi et al., “Conversion of Working Memory to Motor Sequence in the Monkey Premotor Cortex,” Science 301 (2010): 233–36.

  28. A. Pickering, The Cybernetic Brain (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010).

  CHAPTER 15. TRIGGERING

  1. J. Feierman, personal communication with the author; see also N. Tinbergen, The Study of Instinct (London: Oxford University Press, 1951).

  2. I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Human Ethology (New York: Aldine de Gruyter, 1989).

  3. Ibid.

  4. J. Feierman, “The Image of God to Whom We Pray: An Evolutionary Psychobiological Perspective,” Pensamiento 67254 (2012): 817–29.

  5. M. A. Pyc and K. A. Rawson, “Why Testing Improves Memory: Mediator Effectiveness Hypothesis,” Science 330 (2010): 335; see also J. D. Karpicke and J. R. Blunt, “Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning Than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping,” Science 331 (2011): 772–75.

  6. G. Xue et al., “Greater Neural Pattern Similarity across Repetitions Is Associated with Better Memory,” Science 330 (2010): 97–101.

  7. G. Dragoi and S. Tonegawa, “Preplay of Future Place Cell Sequences by Hippocampal Cellular Assemblies,” Nature 469 (2011): 397–401.

  8. S. Gaidos, “More Than a Feeling,” Science News, August 14, 2010.

  9. P. K. Kuhl, “Who’s Talking?” Science 333 (2011): 1311.

  10. C. R. Sunstein, Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

  11. A. M. Kovacs et al., “The Social Sense: Susceptibility to Others’ Beliefs in Human Infants and Adults,” Science 330 (2010): 830–34.

  12. K. C. Bickart et al., “Amygdala Volume and Social Network Size in Humans,” Nature Neuroscience 14 (2011): 163–64.

  CHAPTER 16. INTRANSIGENT BELIEFS AND BELIEF-DISCONFIRMATION FAILURE

  1. J. Bruner, On Knowing (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962).

  2. C. A. Anderson, “Belief Perseverance,” in Encyclopedia of Social Psychology, ed. R. F. Baumeister and K. D. Vohs (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2007), pp. 109–10.

  3. R. Dawkins, The God Delusion (New York: Bantam Books, 2006).

  4. M. Edelson et al., “Following the Crowd: Brain Substrates of Long-Term Memory Conformity,” Science 333 (2011): 108–11.

  5. P. Harrigan, “Dionysus and Kataragama: Parallel Mystery Cults,” The Journal of the Institute of Asian Studies, http://kataragama.org/research/dionysus.htm (accessed June 10, 2013).

  6. E. Haney, “Cult Activity in the ’90s,” Infoplease, http://www.infoplease.com/spot/jonestown3.html (accessed March 8, 2005).

  7. Ibid.

  8. J. R. Hall, Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1987); see also D. Layton, Seductive Poison (New York: Anchor, 1999); and C. Wessinger, How the Millennium Comes Violently: From Jonestown to Heaven’s Gate (Syracuse, NY: Seven Bridges Press, 2000).

  9. S. Yousafzai and R. Moreau, “The Taliban in Their Own Words,” Newsweek, November 5, 2009; see also R. Ibrahim, “An Analysis of Al-Qa’ida’s Worldview,” Middle East Quarterly (January 6, 2009); Y. H. A. S. Zuhur, “Islamic Rulings on Warfare,” Strategic Studies Institute (October 2004); B. Thornton, “Ten Years of Lessons Unlearned,” Frontpage Magazine, September 19, 2011, http://frontpagemag.com/2011/bruce-thornton/ten -years-of-lessons-unlearned/ (accessed June 10, 2013); D. MacEoin, “Suicide Bombing as Worship,” Middle East Quarterly (Fall 2009); and “Shariah: The Threat to America,” (Washington, DC: Center for Security Policy, 2010).

  10. A. Rashid, “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism,” Foreign Affair
s (November/December, 1999).

  11. Ibrahim, “Analysis of Al-Qa’ida’s Worldview”; see also Thornton, “Ten Years of Lessons Unlearned.”

  12. G. Friedman, “Germany and the Failure of Multiculturalism,” Stratfor Global Intelligence, October 19, 2010.

  13. J. Couzin-Frankel, “Court to Weigh University’s Decision Not to Hire Astronomer,” Science 330 (2010): 1731; see also B. Waltke, “Evangelical Scholar Expelled over Evolution,” National Center for Science Education, April 12, 2012, http://ncse.com/news/2010/04/evangelical-scholar-expelled-over-evolution-005432 (accessed March 14, 2010).

  14. R. Petty, “When People Feel Powerful, They Ignore New Opinions,” February 14, 2008, Phys.org, http://www.physorg.com/news122212997.html (accessed April 15, 2010).

  15. B. Ehrenreich, Smile or Die (New York: Granta Books, 2010).

  16. J. Beahrs, personal communication with the author.

  17. G. Martin and J. Pear, Behavior Modification: What It Is and How to Do It, 8th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007).

  18. L. D. Strieker, Brainwashing, Cults, and Deprogramming in the ’80s (New York: Doubleday, 1984).

  19. L. Santos, “Human Prejudice Has Ancient Evolutionary Roots,” Other Sciences/Social Sciences, March 17, 2011.

  20. C. Freeman, The Closing of the Western Mind (New York: Vintage, 2005); see also I. F. McNeely and L. Wolverton, Reinventing Knowledge (New York: Norton, 2008).

  21. D. Gilbert, “Buried by Bad Decisions,” Nature 474 (2011): 275–77.

  22. D. R. Oxley et al., “Political Attitudes Vary with Physiological Traits,” Science 321 (2008): 1667–70.

  23. S. A. J. Birch and P. Bloom, “The Curse of Knowledge in Reasoning about False Beliefs,” Association for Psychological Science, http://psychologicalscience.org/ (accessed April 9, 2010).

  24. D. Fox, “Brain Buzz,” Nature 472 (2011): 156–58.

  CHAPTER 17. AND WHY?

  1. C. Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007).

  2. J. Groopman, “Health Care: Who Knows Best?” New York Review, February 11, 2010.