Anthropological Research on Social Learning of Psychological States

Tanya Luhrmann博士（斯坦福大学）将研究一些美国人如何学会对他们标记为精神的经历做出判断。研究人员借鉴了先前的民族志实地调查，发现至少有两种不同类型的学习涉及：文化知识的获得，或“话语”，以及通过祈祷实践改变人们如何体验他们的思想和身体的特定心理技能的发展。通过关注在社会环境中学习的重要性，这项研究将有助于科学地理解一些人如何学会拥有亲密的精神体验，以及这种学习体验在塑造世界体验方式方面有多么强大。目前的项目围绕以下假设：（1）精神体验是由信仰、倾向和实践相结合塑造的;（2）特定形式的习得性卡塔法（kataphatic）或基于冥想的祈祷会增加心理意象和不寻常的感官体验;（3）有些人首先报告了更多的现象，在吸收量表上得分更高，比其他人改变得更多。研究方法包括实验性的祈祷训练，然后进行评估;关于精神体验的密集访谈;以及对精神体验录音报告的技术话语分析。数据分析将采用网络文本分析和其他用于系统分析定性数据的方法。

Dr. Tanya Luhrmann (Stanford University) will undertake research on how some Americans learn to make judgments about experiences they label spiritual. The researcher draws upon prior ethnographic fieldwork that found that there are at least two distinct kinds of learning involved: the acquisition of cultural knowledge, or "discourse," and the development of specific psychological skills through prayer practice that change how people experience their minds and bodies. By focusing on the importance of learning in a social setting, the research will contribute to scientific understanding how some people learn to have intimate spiritual experiences and how powerful that learning experience can be in shaping the ways in which the world is experienced.The current project is framed around the hypotheses that (1) spiritual experience is shaped by combination of belief, proclivity, and practice; (2) that specific forms of learned kataphatic or imagination-based prayer increase mental imagery and unusual sensory experiences; and (3) that some individuals, who report more phenomena in the first place and score higher on an absorption scale, change more than others. Research methods include experimental prayer training followed by evaluation; intensive interviews about spiritual experience; and technical discourse analysis of taped reports of spiritual experiences. Data analysis will employ cyber-enabled text analysis and other methods used to systematically analyze qualitative data.