The Cognitive And Neural Mechanism Of Superstition And Religious Belief

As the earliest arisen social ideology, superstition and belief are the certain states of mind based on certain knowledge and the related statements are thought to be right. However, the knowledge they based and the way they collected the knowledge are different, as well as the thought and behaviour influenced by this kind of certainty.Religious belief was defined as an illusory thing based on one's subjective wills. Huang suggested that belief reflects the relationship between self and the surroundings, belief is the result of self-conscious, is the ideological form arisen with consciousness raising and cognition develop, reflects the one's comprehension and Perceptual experience of self and surroundings; belief affects and guides one's emotion, will and life. Superstition was early defined as to believe the unrelated phenomenon or things have a cause and effect; to attributes some phenomena to mysterious or immeasurable force. Researchers have developed paranormal belief scale. Chinese scholars defined horoscope, fengshui, Fortune Tellers, Ghosts and spirits, blindly belief etc. "irrational, insupportable belief".The present article aims to explore the cognitive mechanism of superstition and belief by six experiments. Experiment 1 aimed to select the typical superstition and religion believers for the following experiments. The scale of Tobacyk (1983,1988) was revised and then used to measure the superstition of college students.300 college students were recruited in the test. The result suggested that the college students were in lower middle level of superstition. Sex and major are impact factors. Female and art students were more superstitious. The selected samples according to a certain proportion have a high level of superstition. Experiment 2 aimed to compare the personality of superstition and religious believers. The EPQ and IPC were used to measure their personality. The result suggested that the two groups were significantly different on neuroticism dimension:the superstition believes was more neurotic; the two groups were significantly different on each dimension of IPC:superstition believers depend more on powerful others and chance, but they thought highly of their internal control ability. Experiment 3 aimed to explore their implicit attitude towards superstition and religious belief. The participants were asked to take part in the implicit association test; ERP was recorded as the same time. The reaction time of the participants revealed that Christians have positive attitude towards Christian, negative towards superstition; superstition believers have positive attitude towards Christian, ambiguity attitude towards superstition. The superstition believers'attitude style might be the cause of their psychological troubles. Christian stimuli in the incompatible situation evoked more positive late positive component (LPC:P400-700, P600-800) than in the incompatible situation, this LPC was associated with Go/No-go P300 which is the reflection of successful inhibition. In the incompatible situation, the participants have to inhibit their initial cognition to act as required by the test guidelines, so they encountered difficulty when response and had to pay more cognitive resource. The superstition believers paid more cognitive resource to Christian stimuli in the incompatible situation, but not to superstition stimuli. Experiment 4 aimed to measure the participants'recognition on Christian stimuli; ERP was also recorded in order to explore their cognitive mechanism. The results revealed that Christians performed much better on Christian stimuli. The ERP found difference at P2 (150-250ms) and N2 (200-300ms) and LPC (600-900ms), the Christian stimuli evoked more positive P2, N2 and more positive LPC than other stimuli. The early components were associated with attention preference and selection, the LPC was associated with emotion activation. These findings suggested that Christians paid much attention to Christian stimuli and experienced emotion activation. The superstition believers traded Christian stimuli as other stimuli. Experiments 5 aimed to compare the ERP difference between superstition and religious belief by statements-judging task. The result found that Christians choose "believe" for 98.2% of the Christian statements and responded swifter; the superstition believers choose "believe" for 83.4% of the superstition statements. The ERP difference was found between the Christians'belief judging and other judging in the LPC (400-600). The dipole source analysis found the difference was generated from the left parahippocampal gyrus. So we suggest that Christian statements were highly accepted by Christians but the superstition statements were partially accepted by their believers. The ERP findings suggested that Christians treat the doctrine as the guideline of their behaviour but the superstition believer treat superstition arguments as knowledge. Experiment 6 was to measure the ERP of Buddhists by the same task model of experiment 5. The result found that Buddhists highly accepted their doctrines like Christians did. The ERP difference was in accordance with experiment 5, the belief of difference religious have the same cognitive mechanism.The important new findings of the present article lie in the cognition difference of superstition and religion belief; this article find the truth that the two groups treat religion differently, and superstition believers can not be converted to a religion believer. This article finds that the most important difference between superstition and religion believer is the different way to treat religion and their difference recognition. Religion believers treat doctrines as their guidelines. What more, there is no essential difference between religion belief and common recognition, the truth is that religion concept occupy our daily used cognition resource.The present article has important theoretic and practical significance. For the theoretic significance, this study introduced experimental and ERP to compare superstition and religion belief, explored the cognitive difference between these two concepts, which furthered the understanding of these concepts. For the practical significance, it is helpful to find new way to deal with superstition problems, and find new substitutes for human higher values.