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Immortality of the soul as an intuitive idea: towards a psychological explanation of the origins of afterlife beliefs

2012Journal article Open access
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dc.contributor.authorPereira, Vera
dc.contributor.authorFaísca, Luís
dc.contributor.authorSá-Saraiva, Rodrigo
dc.date.accessioned2014-07-31T11:59:29Z
dc.date.available2014-07-31T11:59:29Z
dc.date.issued2012
dc.date.updated2014-07-30T10:23:15Z
dc.description.abstractThis study tried to investigate if intuitive ideas about the continuation of the Self after death determine the way people represent the state of being dead, and, in this way, investigate possible psychological origins of afterlife beliefs, which constitute a recurrent cultural phenomenon. A semi-structured interview and a self-report questionnaire were used to obtain information on the experience of imagining oneself as dead and the representation of the dead-I of young adults. he results suggest that (1) there is a tendency to imagine the state of being dead as a continuation of the I, even in the absence of explicit afterlife beliefs; (2) perceptual, emotional, epistemic and desire experiences are associated to the dead-I; (3) the representation of the dead-I seems to be determined by an interaction between cognitive processes related to self-awareness and theory of mind, and the cultural afterlife beliefs explicitly learned. A previous alternative hypothesis, suggesting that simulation constraints were responsible for the emergence of non-reflective afterlife concepts (Bering, 2002, 2006) is not completely supported by our results. he data presented here suggest that immortality of the soul might be an intuitive religious concept, connected to the experience of the Self and to the implicit theorization that the experienced Self is independent from the body. Future studies should focus on the collection of cross-cultural and developmental data.por
dc.identifier.citationPereira, Vera; Faísca, Luís; Sá-Saraiva, Rodrigo. Immortality of the Soul as an Intuitive Idea: Towards a Psychological Explanation of the origins of Afterlife Beliefs, Journal of Cognition and Culture, 12, 101-127, 2012.por
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org.10.1163/156853712X633956
dc.identifier.otherAUT: LFA00717;
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10400.1/4894
dc.language.isoengpor
dc.peerreviewedyespor
dc.publisherBrillpor
dc.relationEXPERIÊNCIA COGNITIVA E EMOCIONAL IMPLICADA NA ANTECIPAÇÃO DA PRÓPRIA MORTE
dc.subjectDeathpor
dc.subjectAfterlife beliefspor
dc.subjectSelf-awarenesspor
dc.subjectTheory of mindpor
dc.titleImmortality of the soul as an intuitive idea: towards a psychological explanation of the origins of afterlife beliefspor
dc.typejournal article
dspace.entity.typePublication
oaire.awardTitleEXPERIÊNCIA COGNITIVA E EMOCIONAL IMPLICADA NA ANTECIPAÇÃO DA PRÓPRIA MORTE
oaire.awardURIinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/FCT/PIDDAC/SFRH%2FBD%2F27307%2F2006/PT
oaire.citation.endPage127por
oaire.citation.startPage101por
oaire.citation.titleJournal of Cognition and Culturepor
oaire.citation.volume12por
oaire.fundingStreamPIDDAC
person.familyNameFaísca
person.givenNameLuís
person.identifierA-4633-2013
person.identifier.ciencia-id5719-6727-C596
person.identifier.orcid0000-0003-4859-8817
person.identifier.scopus-author-id6503944802
project.funder.identifierhttp://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
project.funder.nameFundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
rcaap.rightsopenAccesspor
rcaap.typearticlepor
relation.isAuthorOfPublicatione21a01b7-3ea3-45b1-97db-f6553ead69a1
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscoverye21a01b7-3ea3-45b1-97db-f6553ead69a1
relation.isProjectOfPublication6d8906d9-d8ce-4ec8-9958-869ddcc19fba
relation.isProjectOfPublication.latestForDiscovery6d8906d9-d8ce-4ec8-9958-869ddcc19fba

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