Which functions assumed to be religious and spiritual in nature are ultimately attributable or reducible to purely secular mechanisms?

ABSTRACT

There is a commonly held assumption that religiosity/spirituality (R/S) reflects unique causal mechanisms in areas such as prosociality, mental health, and in the debate regarding the evolutionary origins of religion. However, because most studies are unequipped to rule out the possibility that R/S features are actually attributable to nonreligious, secular causal mechanisms, this assumption represents a congruence fallacy. The solution to this problem is for studies to control for secular variables such as group attendance and demographics in order to determine whether religious belief adds incremental predictive variance. Experiments must use manipulations consisting of equivalent secular and religious stimuli, such as “dismantling” designs.

KEYWORDS:

• Secular
• nonreligious
• prosociality
• well-being

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.