Processes of Believing: The Acquisition, Maintenance, and Change in Creditions

467 Pages·2017·8.34 MB·English

by  Hans-Ferdinand Angel

New Approaches to the Scientifi c Study of Religion 1
Series Editors: Lluis Oviedo · Aku Visala
Hans-Ferdinand Angel · Lluis Oviedo
Raymond F. Paloutzian
Anne L.C. Runehov
Rüdiger J. Seitz Editors
Processes of
Believing:
The Acquisition,
Maintenance,
and Change
in Creditions
New Approaches to the Scientific
Study of Religion
Volume 1
Series editors
Lluis Oviedo, Pontifical University Antonianum, Roma, Italy
Aku Visala, Helsinki University, Helsingin Yliopisto, Finland
Editorial Board
Helen de Cruz, Oxford Brookes University, UK
Nathaniel Barrett, University of Navarra, Spain
Joseph Bulbulia, Victoria University, New Zealand
Miguel Farias, Coventry University, UK
Jay R. Feierman, University of New Mexico, NM, USA
Jonathan Jong, Oxford University, UK
Justin McBrayer, Fort Lewis College, CO, USA
Introduction to the Series
This series presents new approaches to the scientific study of religion, moving from
the first generation of studies that try to ‘explain religion’ towards a more critical
effort to explore alternative paths in correspondence with this highly complex
human and social feature. The series supports the development of new scientific
models that advance our understanding of religious faith, emotions, symbols, r ituals,
meaning, and the anthropological and cultural dimensions of religions, integrating
them into more complex models.
Recent decades have witnessed a growing interest in the study of religious mind
and behavior from new disciplinary fields, such as cognitive psychology, neurosci-
ence and bio-evolutionary science. The amount of published research is impressive
and has reached a level that now calls for evaluation and revision of current models
and developments. This new series supports this fast-moving development, encour-
aging the publication of new books that move on from current research towards
larger horizons and innovative ideas.
This series:
• Increases academic communication and exchange in this multi-disciplinary
research area.
• Provides a new impetus to the science and religion dialogue.
• Opens up new avenues of encounter and discussion between science and human-
ities traditions.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15336
Hans-Ferdinand Angel • Lluis Oviedo
Raymond F. Paloutzian • Anne L.C. Runehov
Rüdiger J. Seitz
Editors
Processes of Believing: The
Acquisition, Maintenance,
and Change in Creditions
Editors
Hans-Ferdinand Angel Lluis Oviedo
Institute of Catechetics and Religious Pontifical University Antonianum
Education Rome, Italy
Karl-Franzens University of Graz
Graz, Austria Anne L.C. Runehov
Department of Theology
Raymond F. Paloutzian University of Uppsala
Department of Psychology Uppsala, Sweden
Westmont College
Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Rüdiger J. Seitz
Department of Neurology, Centre for
Neurology and Neuropsychiatry,
LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf
Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf, Germany
ISSN 2367-3494 ISSN 2367-3508 (electronic)
New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion
ISBN 978-3-319-50922-8 ISBN 978-3-319-50924-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50924-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934308
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
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Preface
This book addresses the notion of believing as a fundamental process determining
the broad range of human behaviour. To intensify the scientific discourse on the
“normal processes of believing”, the Credition Research Project was inaugurated
some years ago, culminating in the creation of this volume. The perspective is fully
multidisciplinary.
The intention of the Credition Research Project (http://credition.uni-graz.at/) is
to work out a “model of a normal process of believing” regardless of whether it may
take place in religious or mundane contexts. In addition, possible applications of the
model of credition in different fields of relevance (law, economic, religious science,
communication theory, conflict resolution, education, and so on) are discussed.
There are three different but interdependent goals of research that cannot be con-
sidered in isolation, because they mutually influence each other. They are named
and explained below.
• Basic research: to work out a model of credition in an interdisciplinary and trans-
disciplinary approach.
• Applied research: to review the scientific fields to which the model of credition
may be applied and to test its validity.
• Implementation research: the focus of this type of research is to observe and to
stimulate the integration of the model of credition in the context of conceptual
work such as “concepts of sustainability” or “transitional justice”, into commu-
nication processes (for instance, “development of education”) or into organisa-
tions (“development of organisations” or “cross-culture exchange within
organisations”).
The structure of credition has been the title of a series of yearly conferences on
basic research that have been held in Graz, Austria, since 2011. Additionally, a
series of conferences was started in 2013, which opened the door to questions
related to the application of the model of credition. The financial support of the
Karl-Franzens University of Graz, the Government of Styria, and especially the
continuous appreciation and financial contribution by the City of Graz are gratefully
acknowledged.
v
vi Preface
The topics of the Structure of Credition conferences were:
2011 The Role of Cognition, Emotion, and Appraisal
2012 Memory, Space of Action, and Social Binding
2013 Formation, Causation, and Ideation
2014 Valuation, Association, and Decision Making
2015 Stabilisation, Awareness, and Attitude
2016 Epistemology, Networks, and Translation
The topics of the Credition Applied Research conferences which were held in
different universities were:
2013 The Model of Credition and Its Possibilities of Application (Graz/Austria)
2014 The Application of the Credition Research Project in Economics and Social
Sciences (Würzburg/Germany)
2015 How to Use the Model of Credition as Communication Tool in the Field of
Politics and Education (Thessaloniki/Greece)
2016 Credition and Worldviews (Utrecht/The Netherlands)
The conference series of the Credition Implementation Research was inaugu-
rated recently.
2016 The Model of Credition in Theology and Neuroscience (Rome/Italy)
This volume intends to give insights into our discussions of the recent years, and
into the complexity of our interdisciplinary approach. All contributors to this book
were speakers in the basic research conferences. Their contributions reflect their
own scientific approach to and perspective on the topic. At the same time, they show
that an interdisciplinary endeavour opens the door to a fundamental transformation
of perspective without disregarding the foundational soil of traditional reflections.
The book therefore highlights many perspectives which are connected to the ques-
tion of what normal processes of believing – religious or not – might be. The inten-
tion is twofold:
• First, we intend to present approaches that integrate traditional discussions that
are relevant for building a theory of normal believing processes.
• Second, we want to give the floor to a few contributions that explicitly integrate
the process character of believing, shedding new light on the question of belief.
Of course, we know that much more research needs to be done. Therefore, this
volume aims to encourage an interdisciplinary approach to research to develop a
better understanding of what happens when people are believing.
The title of this book Processes of Believing intends to signify the conceptual
switch from the noun “belief” to an expression suggesting the dynamic of the “pro-
cess of believing”. Similarly, the subtitle Acquisition, Maintenance, and Change
outlines the broad perspective of this, highlighting such putative processes con-
nected to believing.
It may sound grammatically strange to combine acquisition, maintenance, and
change with the proposition “in” (i.e. “in Credition”). But many terms of our every-
Preface vii
day language are not sufficient to express those processes that we want to highlight
when using the term “credition”. Importantly, we wish to indicate the need to inte-
grate the question of credition into a theoretical frame, which will allow for a deeper
understanding of the basic function of processes of believing in relation to human
meaning-making system.
This book would not have been published without the dedicated cooperation of
the editors at Springer. We especially want to thank Cristina Alves dos Santos and
Anita van der Linden-Rachmat for their kind and empathetic support by which they
followed the growing of the volume.
Finally, we want to express our special gratitude to two people who went the
extra kilometre in helping this book come to completion. Katrin Staab, at the
University of Graz, did a tremendous amount of work formatting all the chapters.
Katelyn Mukai, at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, did a marvellous job of
copy-editing all 31 chapters while accomplishing the dual goal of crafting correct
English while keeping the author’s native tone. The editors and authors appreciate
their contributions very much. This book is the far better for it.
Graz, Austria Hans-Ferdinand Angel
Rome, Italy Lluis Oviedo
Santa Barbara, CA, USA Raymond F. Paloutzian
Uppsala, Sweden Anne L.C. Runehov
Düsseldorf, Germany Rüdiger J. Seitz
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the financial support by the University of Graz.
ix
Contents
Part I Introduction
Introduction: What We Do Not Know About
Believing – Approaching a New Scientific Hot Spot .................................... 3
Hans-Ferdinand Angel, Lluis Oviedo, Raymond F. Paloutzian,
Anne L.C. Runehov, and Rüdiger J. Seitz
Credition: From the Question of Belief to the Question of Believing......... 17
Hans-Ferdinand Angel
Part II Psychology and Neuroscience
Believing, Remembering, and Imagining:
The Roots and Fruits of Meanings Made and Remade ............................... 39
Raymond F. Paloutzian and Katelyn J. Mukai
Connection Between Scripts Embedding Motor
Schemes and Decision Making ....................................................................... 51
Gennaro Auletta
Beliefs and Believing as Possible Targets
for Neuroscientific Research .......................................................................... 69
Rüdiger J. Seitz
Neurobiological Factors Underlying Attachment
and Trust in the Believing Process ................................................................. 83
Corina Aguilar-Raab and Beate Ditzen
New Concepts on the Motor System: Implications for Emotions
and Credition ................................................................................................... 97
Giovanni Buccino and Ivan Colagè
Neural Underpinnings of the Human Belief System .................................... 111
Irene Cristofori and Jordan Grafman
xi