Doctoral Dissertation Research: Understanding the Cognitive Processes in Religion, Spirituality and Secularism

SES-1333672 John Levi MartinEric Moore芝加哥大学虽然社会科学已经研究了范畴的日常使用，但宗教范畴通常被视为一个预先定义的自变量，而不是研究对象本身。这种倾向导致了我们对宗教对不同人群的理解存在差距。这种情况的问题是，只有当我们了解人们称之为宗教时会发生什么，以及宗教的指涉如何在社会背景下系统地而不是随机地变化时，我们才能真正理解围绕宗教的公共辩论，包括那些与社会学研究有关的。 解决这个问题的一种方法是通过与认知社会学相关的研究方法。认知社会学试图从认知科学的实践和理论出发，以更好地理解认知和文化过程的社会方面。因此，该项目致力于解决三个持续存在的经验方法学问题，与宗教的类别的研究。1)它解决了人们如何在日常交往中区分宗教与世俗和精神的未回答的问题。该项目通过对两个非常不同的人群进行研究来调查这个问题，这两个人群是自我认同的无神论者和实践的基督徒。通过考察人们区分宗教、世俗和精神的文化和认知过程，我们可以了解宗教作为一个现实世界范畴的形态。这些群体在圣经地带和中西部都有研究。2)由于该项目部分地从非信徒的角度看待宗教这一类别，因此它也以一种迄今为止一直缺乏的方式探索了美国无神论者的经验。考虑到日益增长的世俗人口和关于宗教在政治和公共生活中的正确位置的持续辩论，这种探索的重要性是显而易见的。3)该项目利用认知社会学的见解来创建一个独特的研究设计，将传统的定性技术沿着新的解释策略和额外的定量措施。我们在不同的认知情境中确实会有不同的思考方式，这一事实可以在社会学研究中为我们所用。通过使用参与式观察，深入访谈和添加各种认知练习，可以创建一个更准确的文化现象的图片比任何一种方法都更有可能。更广泛的影响除了对社会科学的贡献，这个项目还促进了关于宗教在美国的适当作用的更大的公众对话。 宗教作为一个类别的模糊性，特别是我们对它的缺乏了解，使得我们很难分析宗教及其在当前许多争议中的地位，包括围绕医疗保健资金的争议（例如支付避孕费用）、选举政治（例如，主要政党总统候选人的感知和实际宗教立场），和国际关系（例如美国和中东政治）。 考虑到近年来宗教的重新出现，关于宗教在现代民主中的地位的持续辩论以及世界各地涉及宗教的众多争议，理解宗教如何被创造和理解为普通人的一个类别的过程变得至关重要。同样，增加我们对非宗教人士及其与宗教关系的了解也至关重要。大约1.6%的美国人口自认为是无神论者;这与美国犹太人口的规模大致相同，是美国佛教徒，穆斯林或印度教人口的两倍多。然而，对无神论者的了解相对较少，这种知识的缺乏给正在进行的关于美国宗教地位的对话带来了困难。

SES-1333672John Levi MartinEric MooreUnivesity of Chicago Although the social sciences have studied the everyday use of categories, the category of religion is often treated as a pre-defined independent variable rather than an object of study itself. This tendency has resulted in a gap within our understanding of what religion actually is to various groups of people. The problem with this situation is that we can only truly understand public debates surrounding religion if we understand the contours of what happens when people call something religion and how religion's referents may change systematically, not randomly, across social contexts, including those associated with sociological research. One way to address this issue is through research methods associated with cognitive sociology. Cognitive sociology attempts to build off of practices and theories from the cognitive sciences to better understand the social aspects of cognitive and cultural processes. This project therefore works towards solving three persisting empirical methodological problems related to the study of the category of religion. 1) It addresses the unanswered question of how people distinguish the religious from the secular and spiritual in everyday interactions. The project investigates this question through a study of two very different groups of people, self-identified atheists and practicing Christians. By examining the cultural and cognitive processes people use in making distinctions between religion, the secular and the spiritual we can learn about the shape of religion as a real-world category. These groups are studied both in the Bible Belt and the Midwest. 2) Because the project looks at the category of religion partially from the perspectives of non-believers, it also explores the American atheist experience in a way that has been lacking up until now. The importance of this exploration is clear in light of the growing secular population and ongoing debates over the correct place for religion in politics and public life. 3) The project makes use of insights from cognitive sociology to create a unique research design that incorporates both traditional qualitative techniques along with new interpretive strategies and additional quantitative measures. We literally think differently in different cognitive situations and this fact can be used to our advantage in sociological research. By using participant observation, in-depth interviews and adding a variety of cognitive exercises a more accurate picture of cultural phenomena can be created than would be possible with any one method alone. Broader ImpactsBeyond its contributions to social science, this project furthers the larger public conversation over the appropriate role of religion in the United States. Ambiguity over religion as a category, and specifically our lack of understanding of it, makes it difficult to analyze religion and its place in many current controversies, including those surrounding healthcare funding (e.g. paying for contraception), electoral politics (e.g. perceived and actual religious positions of major party presidential candidates), and international relations (e.g. the United States and the politics of the Middle East). Taking into account the re-emergence of religion in recent years, on-going debates over the place of religion in a modern democracy and the numerous controversies involving religion worldwide, understanding the processes of how religion is created and understood as a category by ordinary persons becomes crucial. Likewise, it is also vital to increase our understanding of the non-religious and their relationships to religion. About 1.6% of the U.S. population is estimated to self-identify as atheist; this is approximately the same size as the U.S. Jewish population and more than twice the American Buddhist, Muslim or Hindu populations. However, relatively little is known about atheists, and this lack of knowledge creates difficulties in the ongoing conversation over the place of religion in United States.