Journal of Cognition and Culture 15 (5) 337343

brill.com/jocc

When Perceiving the Supernatural Changes the

Natural: Religion and Agency Detection
Christine Ma-Kellams

Center for Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA
02139, USA
Department of Psychology, University of La Verne, 1950 Third Street, La Verne,
CA 91750, USA
Christine_ma@hks.harvard.edu

Abstract
How does perceiving supernatural agents shape perceptions of natural agents? Despite
the ongoing debate on whether supernatural attributions are functionless spillover
from a hyperactive agency detector versus more evolved mechanisms that served key
adaptive functions for ancestral humans, both accounts concede that one critical,
defining quality of religion is that it superimposes intentional agency on natural events.
Across two studies, the relationship between religious beliefs and perceptions of both
agency and experience for a diverse array of agents were assessed including ordinary
individuals, supernatural beings, villains, martyrs, and celebrities. Across studies, naturalistically-occurring and experimentally-primed religious beliefs facilitated heightened perceptions of agency, but not experience, across both supernatural and natural
agents. Thus, religious beliefs promote greater sensitivity to agency more generally.
Implications for how this link reconciles the opposing notions of religion as an accidental by-product of agency detection vs. evolved adaptation are discussed.

Keywords
agency detection priming religion

1 Introduction
Religion has stood as a powerful force in shaping human civilization and
behavior. While there are many existing theories surrounding the origins and
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ma-kellams

functions of religion (Boyer, 2001; Atran and Norenzayan, 2004; Epley et al.,
2008; Granqvist et al., 2010; Gray and Wegner, 2010; Kay et al., 2010; Vail et al.,
2010; Ysseldyk et al., 2010; Hogg et al., 2011), it is generally agreed upon that
the real or imagined presence of supernatural deities has a strong impact
on individuals judgments and actions. Given that religions typically involve
interactions with non-physically present intentional agents (Guthrie, 1993),
and the capacity to imagine non-physical agents is a long-standing quality
of human cognition that emerges from an early age (Taylor, 1999) and pervades much of everyday social cognition (e.g., imagined past or future social
interaction, counterfactual scenarios (Povinelli and Preuss, 1995; Scott et al.,
1999)), a recurrent explanation for the existence of religion has been that
perceptions of supernatural entities evolved as a function of more ordinary
agency detection mechanisms. According to anthropomorphism and illusion of animacy accounts, there is a natural propensity for people to perceive
agency when there is none because being alert for agency in the environment
is adaptive for the purposes of predator detection; detection of supernatural
agents, then, emerged as an accidental byproduct of this more ordinary cognitive function (Guthrie, 1993; Barrett, 2000; Atran and Norenzayan, 2004).
In other words, a hyperactive agency detector led to the detection of intentionality and agency in nonhuman entities, thus leading to gods and religious
behavior.
Other accounts, in contrast, posit religion to be an evolved adaptive mechanism, rather than a byproduct of agency detection. By holding intentional
supernatural agents responsible for natural events, religion promoted ancestrally adaptive behaviors that were subsequently selected for over time. In
other words, by attributing natural events to abstract intentional agents and
thereby interpreting such events as signs or messages, believers were motivated to shift their behaviors behavioral shifts that, in the long-run, increased
genetic fitness (Bering and Shackelford, 2004). Despite the ongoing debate
between these two accounts i.e., whether supernatural attributions are functionless spillover from a hyperactive agency detector (Guthrie, 1993; Barrett,
2000; Atran and Norenzayan, 2004) versus more evolved mechanisms that
served key adaptive functions for ancestral humans (Bering and Shackelford,
2004), both accounts concede that one critical, defining quality of religion is
that it superimposes intentional agency on natural events.
Given the long-standing consensus that agency detection is central to religion, a growing body of work has compellingly demonstrated how manipulations of agency perceptions influence religious beliefs (Gray and Wegner,
2010; Grysman and Hudson, 2012). However, few studies, if any, have examined
whether religious beliefs can, in turn, reinforce and promote agency detecJournal of Cognition and Culture 15 (5) 337343

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tion. Based on the evolutionary by-product account (i.e., religion evolved as an

accidental by-product of more ordinary cognitive capacities), if religion
emerged as a function of a hyperactive agency detection device (Barrett,
2010), then those individuals who were particularly sensitive to such hyperactive agency detection would be more likely to not only be religious, but also
perceive greater agency in entities overall. Similar predictions can be reached
based on the evolved adaptation account (i.e., religion served adaptive purposes and was thus selected for). There, the idea is that there was a fitness
advantage to believing in pervasive supernatural agents that judged every
behavior or thought (Bering and Shackelford, 2004). Thus, once again those
who were particularly prone to believing in pervasive supernatural agents who
are present in all situations and at all times may also likely be more sensitive to
agency perception more generally.
Two experiments investigated whether naturalistically occurring (Experi
ment 1) and experimentally-primed (Experiment 2) religious beliefs facilitate
heightened perceptions of agency across entities overall both supernatural
and natural. To specifically test the prediction that religious beliefs have a
unique effect on perceptions of agency and not mind perception more generally, perceptions of both agency and experience (Gray et al., 2007) for a diverse
array of agents were assessed including ordinary individuals, supernatural
beings, villains, martyrs, and celebrities.
2

Study 1

2.1 Participants
Self-identified atheist and religious participants (N= 110; 53% female; Mage =
32.62 years, SD = 11.94) from Amazons Mechanical Turk participated in the
study.
2.2 Methods
Following the procedures outlined by Gray and Wegner (2009), participants
evaluated five different targets on dimensions of agency (How much blame
or praise does this person deserve for his or her actions in life? and How
much thought does this person give to behavior before acting?). In addition,
as a measure of experience, participants were asked to imagine that the target
stepped on a piece of glass that cut their foot, and evaluated how much pain
the target would feel and how easy it would be to take advantage of the target
more generally. For all responses, a 7-point Likert scale was used, with higher
values reflecting greater agency and patiency.
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Participants evaluated five different targets on dimensions of agency (i.e.,

How much blame or praise does this person deserve for his/her actions in
life?; How much thought does this perceive give before acting?) and experience (How much pain does this person feel?; How easy would it be to take
advantage of this person?) following procedures used by Gray and Wegner
(2009). Targets included supernatural agents (God incarnate), both positive
and negative natural agents (Mother Theresa, Osama bin Laden), natural
patients (George, an orphan), and neutral targets (Jamie, a network administrator). In addition, participants answered questions about their religious
identification (e.g., religious or spiritual vs. atheist) and the extent to which
they believed in God (from 1-not at all to 7-very much).
2.3
Results and Discussion
Across all participants, perceptions of the supernatural (i.e., degree of belief
in God) significantly predicted perception of natural agents agency, r = 0.29,
p = 0.001, and experience, r = 0.20, p = 0.030. Those with greater belief in God
perceived increased agency and experience across targets. When examining
religious belief as a dichotomous variable, a repeated-measures mixed model
ANOVA with religious belief (atheist; religious) as a between-subject factor,
along with target (Mother Theresa, Osama bin Laden, George the orphan,
Jamie the network administrator) and mind perception dimension (agency;
experience) as within-subject factors, yielded a similar pattern of results. As
predicted, a significant religious belief by agency vs. experience interaction
emerged, F(1, 108) = 7.09, p = 0.009. Subsequent pairwise comparisons revealed
that religious individuals perceived more agency across targets than atheists
(Mdiff = 1.062, SE = 0.31), F(1, 108) = 11.64, p < 0.001. No differences between
atheists and religious individuals emerged for perceptions of experience,
(Mdiff = 0.45, SE = 0.30), F(1, 108) = 2.33, p = 0.13. Perceptions of the supernatural and religious beliefs predicted increased perceptions of agency among
natural targets.
These findings suggest a natural relationship between religious belief and
the tendency to perceive agency in a variety of diverse natural agents, including villains, martyrs, victims, and neutral targets. Those who exhibited greater
religious belief were more likely to perceive that these agents intentionally
chose their behaviors and thus merited praise or blame for the consequences
of their actions. However, these findings were limited insofar as their correlational nature. To establish the causal relationship between religious belief and
agency detection, Study 2 was conducted.

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Study 2

3.1 Participants
A total of 44 participants (31% male; Mage = 20.70, SD = 5.25) from the
University of California, Santa Barbara research participation pool participated in the study.
3.2 Method
Participants were randomly assigned to receive either a religion or control
prime. The primes involved a series of sentence unscrambling tasks based on
the materials used by Shariff and Norenzayan (2007). Both primes involved ten
sets of five scrambled words, from which participants had to choose four in
order to form a complete sentence. For example, high winds the flies plane
was unscrambled to say the plane flies high. For those in the religion condition, half of the sentences contained the key words: spirit, divine, sacred, God,
and prophets. Participants in the control condition completed a similar prime;
however, all the sentence scrambles contained neutral words (e.g., shoes give
replace old the; more paper it once do). Afterwards, participants evaluated
a new set of natural agents and patients (Hitler; Britney, a pop star; Jason Bell,
a man with downs syndrome; Mr. P, a high school teacher; Jamie, a network
administrator) using the same paradigm as in Study 1.
3.3
Results and Discussion
A repeated-measures mixed model ANOVA yielded the predicted significant agency vs. experience by condition interaction emerged, F(1, 42) = 12.15,
p = 0.001. Condition did not significantly impact perceptions of experience
across targets (Mdiff = 0.17, SE = 0.16), F(1, 42) = 1.05, p = 0.30, but those in
the religion condition perceived greater agency relative to those in the control
(Mdiff = 0.47, SE = 0.11), F(1, 42) = 16.85, p < 0.001.
4

General Discussion

The two studies presented here demonstrated the link between religious
beliefs and agency detection. Both naturalistically occurring religious beliefs
and experimentally primed religious thoughts led to heightened perceptions
of agency, but not necessarily experience, for a diverse array of agents including ordinary individuals, supernatural beings, villains, martyrs, and celebrities. In doing so, these studies are the first of their kind to systematically and

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empirically test an explored direction in the link between religion and perceptions of agency namely, whether religious beliefs can facilitate and promote
agency detection.
Given that across two studies, naturalistically-occurring religious belief and
experimental primes of religion led to greater sensitivity to agency more generally, this link may potentially reconcile the two ostensibly oppositional camps
(i.e., of religion as an accidental by-product vs. evolved adaptation). According
to the former camp that posits religions as a by-product of ordinary cognitive
functions (e.g., a hyperactive agency detection device (Guthrie, 1993; Barrett,
2000; Boyer, 2001; Atran and Norenzayan, 2004)), people tend to over-attribute
agency in the world at large, and such agency detection serves an evolutionary
advantage because assuming that an agent is present when it actually is far
less harmful than assuming an agent is not present when it actually is (Barrett,
2000). Thus, the argument has long been that what was evolutionarily selected
for was this Hyperactive Agency Detection Device, but not religion itself. This
argument is in contrast to the position held by the latter camp, which posits
that religion was not accidental but selected for because religious beliefs in
themselves held adaptive value (Bering and Shackelford, 2004). Given, however,
the present evidence that one of the downstream consequences of religious
belief is further activation of an agency detection device, then it is possible to
reconcile these two camps. In other words, if religious beliefs serve to make
individuals more sensitive to perceptions of agency in the world at large, then
this supports both the former camps argument that agency detection is the
key function that was selected for, as well as the latter camps argument that
religion itself also serves adaptive value in this case, precisely because one of
its functions is to further facilitate agency detection.
In sum, the present findings that religious beliefs promote greater sensitivity to agency more generally offer profound implications for our existing
understanding of religions adaptive function. By building upon past research
that has highlighted the role of agency detection processes in contributing
to religious belief and demonstrating that an important downstream consequence of religion is further activation of such agency detection, the present
work offers a possible reconciliation for the opposing notions of religion as an
accidental by-product of agency detection vs. evolved adaptation.
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Journal of Cognition and Culture 15 (5) 337343