Are positive trait attributions for the deceased caused by fear of supernatural punishments?: A triangulated study by content analysis and text mining.

Yu, Chong Ho

Why do we have religious beliefs? Cognitive psychologist Jesse Bering attempted to answer this question by adopting a naturalistic explanation. Specifically, according to Bering's psychological theories, we are born with the innate idea that there is a spiritual realm in which the deceased continue to exercise their will and other cognitive functions. The belief that things do not end with this life becomes the foundation of our moral order. Bering and his colleagues conducted a series of studies to support this claim, such as the experiment of puppet play (Bering, Blasi, & Bjorklund, 2005), the experiment of trait attributions by photos, the content analysis of obituaries, and the experiment of ghost story (Bering, McLeod, & Shackelford, 2005). This project replicated and extended the study of Bering et al.'s content analysis regarding the perceptions of dead agents. Findings indicate that explaining religion by natural instinct is questionable, and it is the conviction of the author that interpretation should not go beyond what the data entail.

Utilizing the framework of cognitive psychology and evolutionary psychology, Bering traced our tendency of believing in the supernatural to instinct. More specifically, even though events in the universe are random, we tend to find a pattern or purpose in these events. This tendency was developed among our ancestors throughout the history of evolution. Many people are helpless when facing unfortunate events, and use adaptive or coping mechanisms to optimize negative outcomes that are out of their control, such as putting their faith on an external agent (e.g., God) (Bering, 2003, 2012; Bering & Johnson, 2005). This inclination of seeing random events as designed for a purpose by God is known as "teleological reasoning" (Bering, 2006, p.453), an idea that resembles Kelemen and Rosset's (2009) notion of promiscuous teleology. Moreover, Bering (2002a) hypothesized that humans have a natural tendency to perceive cognitive systems as continuing to function after death, and this disposition might be the psychological foundation of religion. The underlying mechanism of this inclination is called the "theory of mind" (Bering, 2006, p.253), which is a research program that has been extensively studied by numerous psychologists (e.g. Avis & Harris, 1991; Flavell, Flavell, & Green, 1983; Gopnik & Astington, 1988; Richert & Barrett, 2005; Wigger, 2011; Wigger, Paxson, & Ryan, 2012). In this view, humans are said to be capable of attributing mental states to others even though these mental states are not directly observable. Because humans have a theory about how the mind works, people think they know what it is like to be dead or how dead people think about us. Based on the previous theory of mind, Bering (2002b) proposed the existential theory of mind (EToM), which is "a biologically based, generic explanatory system that allows individuals to perceive meaning in certain life events" (p. 4).

In an attempt to empirically substantiate his claims, Bering et al. (2005) conducted a content analysis by extracting trait attributions from 496 obituaries published in the New York Times. The trait codes and the categories were adopted from the Evaluation of Other Questionnaire (EOOQ), as shown in Table 1 (Shapiro, 1988). The original EOOQ has four categories (achievement-relatedness, social skills, subjective well-being, and kindness/morality), but in Bering et al.'s (2005) study, only three were included (achievement-relatedness, social skills, and kindness/morality). In these obituaries, Bering and his team found that pro-social (kindness) and morality-related attributes of the deceased appeared more frequently than other types of qualities, such as achievements and social skills. The significant difference between the frequencies of different trait categories was confirmed by one-dimensional Chi-square analysis ([X.sup.2] = 214.75; p < .001). Bering and his associates suggested that the "ultimate cause" in positive attributions to dead agents is a result of adaption that could be traced back to our ancestors (p. 366, 371). These positive attributions are linked to the fear of supernatural punishments. Specifically, if dead agents are believed to be aware of what the living people said and did, people would behave better, and eventually it could strengthen the moral framework. However, this conclusion is questionable in two aspects. First, if this phenomenon is due to our natural inclination rather than cultural factors, it should be verified in a cross-cultural context, but no replication in other cultural contexts has been made. Second, even if the phenomenon is cross-cultural, is fear of supernatural punishments the only reason that people say nice words about the pro-social and morality-related traits of the deceased? To investigate the first issue, this author replicated and extended the same type of study in a different cultural setting, namely, the United Kingdom. At the end, Bering's theoretical framework was unpacked and counter-arguments against his theory were explained in detail.

The Naturalistic Paradigm

For the last several centuries numerous academic endeavors have been made in an attempt to explain religion. Generally speaking, these approaches could be summarized into two categories: naturalistic explanations and cultural explanations. The works of Bering, Bloom (2004), Boyer (1994, 2001), Guthrie (1993), and Barrett (2004) can be classified as the naturalistic approach, though there are disagreements among these authors. In Barrett's (2004) view, the human cognitive structure carries certain hardwired dispositions that lead us to embrace supernatural beliefs. Specifically, because our ancestors who lived in a dangerous world had to be highly alert constantly, they may have misperceived many ordinary things as a signal of threat. Nevertheless, it is better to make a Type I error (false alarm) than a Type II error (miss a real threat). For example, it is better for a hunter to mistake a rock for a tiger than to mistake a tiger for a rock. This psychological inclination, which is called hyperactive agency detection device (HADD), makes us receptive to imagined and invisible agents. For instance, if a flood destroys a village, it is better to assume that the river spirit is angry and take action, such as offering sacrifices to the river spirit than assuming otherwise and remaining still. Barrett (2004) suggested that religious concepts and practices, which emerged from communities, strengthened moral and social order, and equipped religious people with survival advantages over non-religious people.

Following the naturalistic approach, Bloom (2004) contended that humans are prone to be dualists because mind-body dualism is compatible with common sense. For instance, while children accept the brain as responsible for some aspects of mental life, such as solving math problems, they simultaneously deny the brain having something to do with loving one's brother. It is natural for humans to postulate that there is some entity beyond the body, and therefore people are receptive to supernatural beliefs. In a similar vein, Boyer (2001) asserted that our minds are well-prepared for religion due to natural selection. Religious people perceive their god in anthropomorphic terms. In other words, humans tend to conceptualize a god that is in many aspects like us; but this deity is much more powerful than humans. We have intuitions about what gods should look like, which religious concepts are good, and we project our images onto the supernatural world. This cognitive preparedness for religion cannot be exhaustively explained by cultural diffusion.

The Cultural Paradigm

The cultural and sociological approaches can be traced back to Freud (1927/1975; 1929/1962) and Marx (1844/1977). According to Freud, religion is a mass neurosis resulting from our interaction with a stressful environment. In order to alleviate our anxiety, we project the father figure onto the image of God. In Marx's view, religion is a response to social and economic oppression, and the ruling class uses religion to justify the status quo. Although apparently both the naturalistic and cultural groups are similar to each other in the sense that religion is said to result from human-environment interaction, the assumptions of the two groups are vastly different. In the naturalistic perspective, religion can be subscribed by any people in any culture because the tendency is internally driven. On the contrary, in the Freudian and Marxist views, when the psychological, social, and cultural conditions that make us vulnerable to superstition are no longer present, people will not see a need for religion. Some modern authors went even further to claim that religion is a form of cultural virus spreading from mind to mind and from culture to culture (e.g. Craig, 2010; Dawkins, 1990, 2008; Dennett, 2007; Ray, 2009).

In a similar vein to Freud and Marx, these modern authors believe that when our culture is improved by scientific reasoning and citizens are endowed with better education, religion will be debunked and lose its attractiveness. Based on his studies regarding secularization in Europe and apostasy in the US, Zuckerman (2008, 2011) argued that while people could be programmed to embrace religious beliefs, they could also be deprogrammed to walk away from religion. When European societies (e.g. Denmark and Sweden) are highly developed and people have a high level of well-being, they no longer value religion. While the preceding approaches emphasized the cultural conditions that breed or deter religious ideas, other cultural approaches focus on the dynamic or evolutionary aspect of religion. For example, equipped with training in theology and church history, Armstrong (1994) illustrated how the concept of God, as a reflection of cultural traits, changed throughout history. According to Armstrong, each generation comes up with a different set of ideas about God, based upon the need, fear, vision, and emotion of the culture. Similarly, utilizing resources from archeology, history, and evolutionary psychology, Wright (2009) argued how the idea of God evolved over time due to the necessity of particular cultural contexts. Interestingly, empirical studies seem to support the cultural approach to religion. For example, Nelsen and Kroliczak (1984) found a decline in Americans' belief in a punishing God, and this coincides with a decline of parenting by using the "God will punish you" approach. Further, Granqvist and Kirkpatrick (2004) suggested that people's attachment to a supernatural power is, to some extent, parallel to people's interpersonal relationships. Empirical studies found that people who lack a firm attachment to their parents tend to believe in a loving god. This explanation is known as the compensation model (Hood, Hill, & Spilka, 2009). In other words, our perception of God, to some degree, depends on parenting and other cultural factors.

Combining the Naturalistic and Cultural Approaches

In recent years, some researchers have merged the naturalistic and cultural approaches together. For example, the Cultural Evolution of Religion Consortium (Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition, and Culture, 2013) adopted gene-cultural co-evolution as the theoretical starting point. Their research endeavors are devoted to researching questions surrounding whether religious beliefs derived from an over-projection of theory of mind, as well as how religion and pro-social behaviors, such as honesty and fairness, are related. It seems to be a promising research agenda because this author does not view natural dispositions and cultural influences as mutually exclusive. Like learning math, science, music, art, and many other things, religious ideas can be better-understood in the light of nature-nurture interactions.

Explaining "Away" Religion

Bering et al's (2005) research agenda is built upon and coincides with many other existing naturalistic theories of religion, such as teleological reasoning, common-sense dualism, and the theory of mind. Nonetheless, Bering (2003) regarded the explanation of religion by hyperactive agency detection device as insufficient because this so-called natural tendency is still environmentally-induced. In his view, the majority of people turn to religion because of subjective negative experiences, not objective events in a hostile environment. It is clear that Bering rejected the environmental or cultural approach, and his highly naturalistic theory of religion can be epitomized by the following passage:

   Default inferences that are typically
   associated with religious thinking
   (e.g., belief in the continuity of personal
   consciousness after death;
   belief in an abstract intentional agency
   as the arbiter of life events, and
   the creator of species and natural
   inanimates) are not activated by culturally
   transmitted religious concepts,
   but instead give rise to religious concepts
   themselves. (p. 245) [emphasis
   in the original]

More importantly, to Bering the finding of our natural tendency towards supernatural beliefs can explain "away" religion. The pre-supposition that the belief of God is nothing more than an illusion is explicitly expressed in the following passage (Bering, 2012):

   Nature may have had a few tricks up
   her sleeve to ensure that we would
   fall hook, line, and sinker for these
   spectacular ruses. Ultimately, of
   course, you must decide for yourself
   whether the subjective psychological
   effects created by your evolved cognitive
   biases reflect an objective reality,
   perhaps as evidence that God
   designed your mind to be so receptive
   to Him. Or, just maybe, you will
   come to acknowledge that, like the
   rest of us, you are a hopeless pawn
   in one of natural selection's most successful
   hoaxes ever--and smile at the
   sheer ingenuity involved in pulling it
   off, at the very thought of such mindless
   cleverness. One can still enjoy
   the illusion of God, after all, without
   believing Him to be real. (p. 8)

In an interview Bering voiced his objection towards people changing their mind about their belief of God, such as a death-bed conversion, which Evangelical Christians utilize to advocate their course. According to Bering, death-bed conversions may simply be a psychological illusion, which is irrelevant to the objective reality (Mulvey, 2012). This line of reasoning is questionable because although one's subjective feeling may or may not reflect the objective reality, it does not necessarily imply that the perception must be an illusion. For example, when I perceive that my wife loves me, it is possible that I may be right or may be wrong. I can construct a psychological explanation of my feelings based on Maslow's humanistic psychology. However, even if there is a convincing psychological theory to explain my tendency of looking for love, it still cannot lead to a firm conclusion that my wife does not love me at all. To be blunt, religion as a result of cognitive bias is a pre-supposition, not a logical necessity deduced from sound reasoning or substantiated by empirical data. Examining Bering's interpretive framework requires another article in its own right. In this article the author intends to focus on Bering's study of obituaries.

Methodology

Bering et al.'s (2005) study on trait attributions in obituaries has certain limitations. First, the sample was obtained from a relatively religious country (USA). About 37% of Americans attend church on a regular basis (Pew Research Center, 2012). Moreover, a Gallup poll (2011) shows that 92% of Americans believe in the existence of God. An earlier study indicates that only 6% of Americans considered themselves "atheists" (Norris & Inglehart, 2004). Thus, the wording patterns found in the New York Times ' obituaries and the idea of afterlife among the Americans can be a cultural product, instead of a natural tendency. Another shortcoming of Bering et al.'s (2005) study is the use of pre-built trait categories only. This approach is not completely data-driven and the coders were guided by certain preconceptions. Although a high inter-rater reliability was reported in their study, only one single method, content analysis, was used. Put bluntly, there was no triangulation. In the following section, the author will discuss what remedies were employed to improve this study. Third, Bering et al's (2005) data were sourced from one newspaper only, and thus there is a risk of sampling bias. Last, the result of one-dimensional Chi-square test was reported in Bering et al.'s (2005) study, but it lacks the detail of the composition of the three categories in EOOQ. If the frequencies of the trait codes in the three categories are uneven (e.g., more codes about kindness and morality than those of achievement), the Chi-square test result merely reflects the unfair starting points.

Population and Sample

Another sample is needed in order to further examine Bering et al.'s (2005) notion. In contrast to the United States, churchgoers in the United Kingdom are rare. According to the British Social Attitudes Survey conducted by NatCen Social Research (2011), 56% of Britons who belong to or were brought up in a religious household never attend religious services or meetings. Among these people, only 14% attend church weekly. The statistical report compiled by Archbishops' Council (2012) shows a much lower figure when the entire population is taken into consideration: only 1.75 percent (1.1 million out of 62.47 million) of British people attend church on a weekly basis. Secularization is by no means a new phenomenon in the UK. A 2004 study conducted by Norris and Inglehart (2004) reveals that 39% British do not believe in God. An independent report released by BBC (2004) in the same year came to a similar conclusion: 44% British are non-believers. Based on statistics and other evidence, Berger, Davie, and Fokas (2008) described the characteristic of America as "religious" and that of Europe, including the UK, as "secular." They illustrated this discrepancy by sharing Berger's own experience in England: When he was traveling in London, he asked the hotel concierge for the direction to an Anglican Church. Surprisingly, the receptionist mistakenly thought that the Church of England is the Roman Catholic Church. Based on extensive interviews with children in the UK, Hay (2006) argued that children raised in the UK still have a high degree of spirituality. Does this imply that after all the US and the UK are not vastly different in terms of spirituality and religiosity? It is crucial to point out that Hay subscribes to a universal position of spirituality, which means that children across all cultures have the capability of actualizing their potential spirituality. However, cultural pressures and the decline in institutional religion suppress their pursuit of spiritual lives; this is what had happened in the UK.

If the perception of active dead agents is really natural or a-cultural, then the trait attributions found in the US sample should also be observed in the UK. In Bering's study all the observations were selected from one source: the New York Times. In the current study obituaries published in two UK newspapers, namely, Guardian and Independent, served as the accessible population. The reason for using two data sources instead of one is obvious: counting on one single data source might result in a sampling bias. As a countermeasure, in this project, 339 obituaries printed in February 2013 were copied from these two sources (Guardian = 298, Independent = 41). Because these UK newspapers occasionally print obituaries from other countries, the following inclusion criteria were adopted: The deceased had to be born or live in the United Kingdom. During the screening process it was found that Independent printed more obituaries of non-British people than Guardian, and as a result, the numbers of observations from the two sources are asymmetrical. In this sample, 257 decedent people were males and 82 were females.

Data Analysis

As mentioned before, two of the shortcomings of Bering et al.'s study are the use of pre-built trait categories only, the use of a single approach, and the use of a single data source. As a remedy, two types of qualitative data analysis were utilized in this project: content analysis based on EOOQ using MAXQDA (VERBI GmbH, 2013) and text mining without pre-built categories implemented in SPSS Text Analysis (IBM SPSS Inc., 2011). In addition to using EOOQ, the human coders generated new attributes when the meaning of the passage could not fit into any pre-existing codes in EOOQ.

It is important to point out that text mining does not merely count the frequency of recurring words. Rather, text mining utilizes computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, and natural language processing to build categories based on the context of the words and phrases (Mehler & Kohler, 2007; Singhal, 2001; Yu, Jannasch-Pennell, & DiGangi, 2011). One of the major advantages of text mining is that the algorithm always yields consistent results whereas the quality of content analysis via manual coding is affected by human factors, such as order effect, subjective judgment, and fatigue. Furthermore, data-driven text mining is fully compatible with the exploratory character of qualitative research. However, although the initial category building is automated, this does not mean that the researcher hands over the entire judgment to the computer program; rather, the researcher may rename or regroup the categories if the modification can yield a more meaningful set of categories. In other words, human judgment, whether it is exercised in content analysis or text mining, is still indispensable in qualitative research. Both approaches can complement each other; this type of "method triangulation" enables the researcher to see whether or not the results can converge into the same conclusion.

Although Bering employed one-dimensional Chi-square analysis in his study, it is argued here that Chi-square analysis is inappropriate to the data set collected in the current study, because among the 38 items listed in the original EOOQ, 26 of them fall into the category of "kindness/morality" while only 3 items belong to "achievement-relatedness." The composition of EOOQ is detailed in Table 2. This imbalance in the composition of the trait codes would give kindness and morality an advantage if the Chi-square test by category is used. To rectify the situation, the descriptive statistics of individually coded variables in EOOQ was reported. Only the codes generated by text mining were analyzed by Chi-square tests in order to determine whether or not the frequency of certain categories significantly outnumbers others.

Results

The obituaries were imported into MAXQDA for content analysis. No negative attributes of EOOQ, such as "hypocritical" and "selfish" were found in the obituaries, and thus these categories are not considered useful. Table 3 shows the new codes created by the human coders when the meaning of the passage did not fit into any items in EOOQ. The new codes were classified according to the EOOQ categories. After additional trait attributes were discovered and appended into the original EOOQ table, it was found that traits related to kindness and morality are still dominant (see Table 4).

Of the 2,012 traits that were extracted from the data, 312 belonged to the category of achievement-relatedness (14.84%), 1,427 belonged to kindness/morality (67.89%), 249 belonged to social skills (11.85%), and 114 made reference to subject well-being (5.42%). However, as mentioned before, there are more codes in kindness/morality than other categories, and thus this coding result may be a product of uneven distributions of codes. When the traits were considered individually, a different story emerged. Table 5 displays the top 20 most frequently recurring codes extracted from the data. The top three belong to achievement-relatedness (accomplished, talented, intelligent), with an additional two also from this category (hard-working and creative). Three belong to kindness/morality (helpful, kind, and loving) and one belongs to social skills (good sense of humor).

The matrix in Table 6 displays the inter-relationships among the most common co-occurring codes. Figure 1 is a visual presentation of the inter-relationships of the codes. Both the matrix and the chart were generated by MAXQDA. According to the table and the code relation chart, "accomplished" and "talented" co-occurred most often whereas "intelligent", "hard-working", and "helpful" also seem to be strongly associated with "accomplished."

Based on the context of 1,142 extracted words and phrases, SPSS Text Analytics identified ten common themes or categories as shown in Table 7. Although not all are directly related to the characters of the deceased, these themes or categories can still reflect personal attributes of the dead. For example, many passages in the obituaries focused on academic achievement and employment. In the eyes of the obituaries' authors, these are important elements that can define their decedent relatives. The common themes recognized by text mining overwhelmingly concentrate on the domain of achievement. A Chi-square analysis between the frequencies of trait categories yields a significant difference (X= 399.4, p < .0001). The category web generated by SPSS, as shown in Figure 2, is equivalent to the code relation chart created by MAXQDA. The category web depicts that there are strong associations among the traits "academic," "employment," and "artistic."

Discussion

This replicated study zooms into only a small portion of Bering's psychology of religion. Without an overview one may wonder why this author devoted tremendous efforts into a triangulated mixed-method study to examine a seemingly trivial issue: How did people write obituaries? To show the significance of the current research problem and how it fits into the overall agenda of Bering's psychology of religion, in this section his notions will be scrutinized through a wide-angle lens at both the theoretical and empirical levels.

Issues at the Theoretical Level

One of the theoretical issues of Bering's research program is that it builds upon certain strong but unsupported assumptions. Bering and his research team assume that events in the world are random and purposeless, but we try to extract existential meanings out of the random occurrences in the natural world by imaging an intrusive and authoritarian eye in the sky (Bering & Johnson, 2005). However, how can we know that events in the universe are truly random and aimless? Take judging whether a string of digits is random or not as an example. At first glance this sequence is random: 100111100110111001101. Nevertheless, one can observe a recurring pattern after seeing the subsequent numbers: 1001111001101110011011001111001101110011011 00111100110111001101. Chaitin (1975) found that any attempt to decide the randomness of a sufficiently long binary string is inherently doomed to fail. We misjudge events as random because we can only examine finite data in the short run. Length matters!

Furthermore, it is common for researchers to use a 5-point or 7-point Likert scale for measuring attitudes. When we try to detect a pattern or relationship between two single survey items based on a Likert scale, the regression model, as shown in Figure 3, suggests that the data points are nothing more than random noise. Nevertheless, when variables are put together to form two composite scores, a pattern emerges, as depicted by Figure 4. Again, it is one of our cognitive deficiencies that we tend to jump into the conclusion based on a small amount or partial data (Kahneman, 2011). Size matters.

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The Central Limit Theorem (CLT) is another intriguing phenomenon in mathematics. No matter how messy or noisy the underlying population is, the end result of repeated sampling is always a sampling distribution with a normal pattern. Pascal Triangle, also known as Quincunx, further substantiates the orderliness of world events. Even if balls are randomly poured into a Pascal Triangle, this stochastic process always produces a fairly normal distribution. Are events in the world purely random and so-called structure is imposed by our wishful thinking or false belief? By far all major mathematical theorems suggest the otherwise. One may argue that these mathematical phenomena are not the same as human affairs. It is important to point out that certain mathematical phenomena can be actualized by statistical data. Take the preceding regression model as an example again. One can collect real data to verify the pattern. Instead of using simulated populations in the Central Limit Theorem, one can perform repeated sampling using real populations, and it is guaranteed that the results would be the same. In short, the initial assumption that events are random is an unsupported claim (Yu, 2014).

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Bering denies the pattern or organization out there; rather, in his view this perceived pattern arises within our mind as a result of our internal organizing algorithms. Bering and Shackelford (2004) argued that certain Darwinian algorithms are grounded in human conscious motives, which have inserted themselves at the level of the gene. In discussing supernatural beliefs as an evolutionary byproduct, again Bering (2006) wrote, "Perhaps human minds have a genetic predisposition toward supernatural belief" (p.142). However, is there any biological evidence substantiating these claims? What types of gene carrying such motives and beliefs had been discovered? Bering and his associates did not provide the readers with any detail, but the devil is in the detail. This "leap of faith" is pervasive in the research enterprise of evolutionary psychology. The genetic and biological causal mechanism of human mind is at most a metaphor. It is a useful fiction or a convenient model that the human mind is compared to a computer or a machine running "Darwinian algorithms," but there is no direct evidence that this model is mapping to the objective reality (Gantt, Melling, & Reber, 2012).

In response to Bering's claim that religious ideas are innate, Pyysiainen (2003) poised an explicit challenge by saying, "I don't think it is possible to take religiosity to be innate in the sense that religious concepts qua religious concepts were genetically determined ... religion can be no more innate than football or politics" (p. 219). One may find biological evidence that humans like sports and politics, but this disposition does not necessarily lead to such activities. In a similar vein, Barrett (2011) found terms like innate and hard-wired problematic because virtually everything we do has a biological base. It is strange to regard some of the cognitive functions as part of our brain circuitry whereas some are not. Put simply, every cognitive activity is hardwired. Therefore, besides religious concepts, the notion of innateness can be well applied to almost all situations. Why do we like music? It is an innate idea resulted from evolutionary adaption. Why do we enjoy sex? It comes from internal compulsion so that humans can enhance their survival fitness. Why do girls like certain colors? It is innate, too. When a theory can explain almost everything, it explains nothing.

There are other weaknesses in Bering's theory in terms of explanation. In comparing the naturalistic and cultural approaches to psychology of religion, Barrett (2003) pointed out that the cultural approach can evade difficult questions regarding where the idea of supernatural fear came from. However, Bering's naturalistic model must bite the bullet and face the question. If this is an innate idea, how could it arise in the first place? Did the concept of active dead agent result from an interaction with a ghost or from a hallucination? Bering (2002a) offered this explanation: "Ghosts come from within" (p. 293) in the way that we project human qualities to the image of ghosts. Simply put, ghost and other religious concepts are intuitive. In all fairness toward the arguments presented by Bering, sometimes intuition could be accepted as a legitimate answer to certain mental phenomena. For example, at the present time we still do not fully understand the origin of mathematical concepts. According to Godel, "Despite their remoteness from sense experience, we do have something like a perception also of the objects of set theory, as is seen from the fact that the axioms force themselves upon us as being true. I don't see any reason why we should have any less confidence in this kind of perception, i.e. in mathematical intuition, than in sense perception" (cited in Lindstrom, 2000, p. 123; Yu, 2004). However, there is a subtle difference between mathematical intuitionism and Bering's intuitionism. Respectable mathematicians never use intuition or innateness to assert that mathematical concepts are false beliefs! On the contrary, Penrose (1989) admired the internal structure and beauty of mathematical concepts. After reviewing the Cauchy integral formula, the Riemann mapping theorem, and the Lewy extension property, Penrose proposed that the beauty and structure of mathematics might have a divine origin.

In the discussion of supernatural agents, Bering and Johnson (2005) maintained that making supernatural causal inferences may be adaptive because it enabled our ancestors to control events through "implanting false beliefs, repairing false beliefs, manipulating emotion" (p.119) ... etc. It is obvious that the control mechanism is stated in a negative term and a judgmental tone (e.g. "false belief" and "manipulating emotions"). Is there conclusive evidence that all supernatural or religious beliefs are false? Since neutrality is a common protocol widely adopted by psychologists, it is odd to see such language used in his scholarly writing. Additionally, on one hand Bering (2006) recognized the adaptive function of supernatural fear, such as counteracting bold and dangerous miscalculations, discouraging people from social deviance ... etc., but on the other hand he insisted that religion is nothing more than an "accidental byproduct," (p.143) "a spandrel or an exaptation" (p.146). If a computer algorithm can effectively prevent my computer from virus infection and enhance the system efficiency, but I insist that the software module is just an advantageous by-product, would any reasonable person suspect that I have a strong bias against the computer programmer or the software company? The usage "by-product," "spandrel," or "exaptation" implies that religious or supernatural beliefs must be false and therefore the benefit resulted from a false religion is nothing but an unintended, happy accident.

Last but not least, the notion that believing in God emerges from natural mechanisms is self-defeating. If belief in God is misguided by many natural tendencies, including teleological reasoning, mind-body dualism, perception of active dead agents, and so on, how did Bering and other psychologists overcome these overwhelmingly natural dispositions? Did they have another set of natural tendencies that made them immune to this type of psychological illusion? How did the New Atheism movement gain popularity in the UK? How did Great Britain, once a Christian nation, turn into a secular state and lose a majority of their church members within a few decades? Did the cognitive structures of the British people gradually transform within half a century? In short, it is premature to affirm that a naturalistic explanation is sufficient to explain or explain away religion.

Issues at the Empirical Level

Although Bering's research team conducted experiments and utilized quantitative data in their investigation, it is doubtful whether their data can adequately support their claims. Occasionally Bering and his colleagues cited certain cases in an attempt to support the notion of supernatural fear as our moral foundation. For example, in 1970 Katherine Power killed a security guard in a bank and got away. In 1993 she turned herself in to the police because she had a "contract with God" (cited in Bering & Johnson, 2005, p.131). However, how many criminals are like Katherine Power? What is the percentage of fugitives that are willing to turn themselves in to the authorities unconditionally? If many felons, driven by fear of supernatural judgment, would eventually walk into the prison, then we would not need the FBI, DEA, and ATF. In the perspective of statistics and probability, the logical conclusion should be that the majority of people are not afraid of supernatural punishment!

This study was triangulated by analyses performed in two software packages (MAXQDA and SPSS Text Analytics) in two different modes: content analysis by human coders and text mining by algorithms. However, the results converge into a coherent conclusion. The content-analyzed data shows that the most frequent recurring traits are those related to achievements. Similarly, text mining reveals that the common themes emphasized by the authors of the obituaries were those linked to achievements (e.g. academic, employment). Therefore, this study casts doubt on Bering et al.'s (2005) claim on the perception of dead agents. In order to further investigate whether the pattern of positive attributions for dead agents is natural or cultural, this author planned to replicate the same type of study in different cultures, especially societies that are more secular than the US.

As mentioned before, Bering and his colleagues suggested that the positive trait attributions of the dead agents are motivated by fear of supernatural punishment. However, this is mere interpretation. The data collected by Bering et al. (2005) does not necessarily lead to this interpretation. Bering et al. (2005) made the same type of assumption in the study of trait attributions by photos. In this study, participants were asked to rate the traits of three strangers displayed in photos. A week later they returned to continue the study but were told that one of the persons had died over the weekend. Afterwards, on average, participants rated the dead person more favorably than others, and again this result was interpreted by fear of supernatural punishment. However, there are alternate explanations to this outcome. For example, the works of a deceased artist may become more valuable because this artist can no longer produce any more paintings. Similarly, we may say nice things about the dead out of sympathy. However, data collected in the current study cannot allow us to identify the cause of positive attributions, either. Thus, this author and his research team planned to replicate the study of trait attributions by photos with a different sample and with one additional component in the research design: ask the participants why they gave higher ratings to the dead person. It is maintained here that direct evidence is more credible than indirect inference.

References

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Special thanks to Ms. Young Kim, Dr. Anne-Marie Conn, Ms. Clara Myers, Dr. Brian Eck, Ms. Anna Yu, and Ms. Samantha Douglas for their valuable input in this project. Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Chong Ho Yu, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Azusa Pacific University, Azusa CA 91702; chonghoyu@gmail.com; cyu@apu.edu

Chong Ho Yu

Azusa Pacific University

Author

Chong Ho (Alex) Yu is an Associate Professor of the Department of Psychology at Azusa Pacific University. He has a Ph.D. in educational psychology (Arizona State University, ASU) with a concentration on measurement, statistics, and methodological studies, as well as a Ph.D. in philosophy (ASU) with a specialization in history and philosophy of science. His research interests include, but are not limited to, exploratory data analysis, data visualization, data mining, and faith integration.

Table 1

Codes and Categories in EOOQ

Item number   Code                      Category
in EOOQ

1             Charming                  Social skills
2             Sorrow                    Subjective well-being
3             Kind                      Kindness/morality
4             Creative                  Achievement-relatedness
5             Good sense of humor       Social skills
6             Hypocritical              Kindness/morality
7             Friendly                  Social skills
8             Trustworthy               Kindness/morality
9             Wise                      Achievement-relatedness
10            Phony                     Kindness/morality
11            Sad                       Kindness/morality
12            Attractive                Social skills
13            Shy                       Social skills
14            Anxious                   Subjective well-being
15            Cruel                     Kindness/morality
16            Fun to work with          Social skills
17            Intelligent               Achievement-relatedness
18            Happy with themselves     Subjective well-being
19            Snobby                    Kindness/morality
20            Hard-working              Kindness/morality
21            Happy with their lives    Kindness/morality
22            Good-looking              Kindness/morality
23            Ethical                   Kindness/morality
24            Competent                 Kindness/morality
25            Efficient                 Kindness/morality
26            Conceited                 Kindness/morality
27            Moody                     Kindness/morality
28            Knowledgeable             Kindness/morality
29            Dishonest                 Kindness/morality
30            Likable                   Kindness/morality
31            Depressed                 Kindness/morality
32            Helpful                   Kindness/morality
33            Easy to get along with    Kindness/morality
34            Selfish                   Kindness/morality
35            Loving                    Kindness/morality
36            Accomplished              Kindness/morality
37            Psychologically healthy   Kindness/morality
38            Talented                  Kindness/morality

Table 2

Original EOOQ Code Composition

Category                    Frequency    Percentage

Achievement-relatedness         3          7.895%
Kindness/morality              26          68.421%
Social skills                   6          15.789%
Subjective well-being           3          7.895%

Table 3

New Traits Generated by Human Coders

Code                 Category

Energetic            Subjective well-being
Compassionate        Kindness/morality
Inspiring            Social skills
Adventurous          Achievement-relatedness
Innovative           Achievement-relatedness
Modest               Kindness/morality
Bravery              Kindness/morality
Family-oriented      Social skills
Radical              Kindness/morality
Spiritual            Subjective well-being
Encouraging          Kindness/morality
Carefree             Subjective well-being
Leadership           Achievement-relatedness
Resilient            Subjective well-being
Justice              Kindness/morality

Table 4

Modified Code Composition

Category                     Frequency    Percentage

Achievement-relatedness          6          11.321%
Kindness/morality               32          60.377%
Social skills                    8          15.094%
Subjective well-being            7          13.208%

Table 5

Frequency of EOOQ and Self-Generated Codes

Code                      Frequency

Accomplished              556

Talented                  137

Intelligent               109

Hard-working              105

Bravery                   89

Helpful                   74

Good sense of humor       72

Kind                      63

Justice                   55

Creative                  54

Compassionate             53

Energetic                 51

Leadership                51

Inspiring                 50

Likable                   50

Loving                    48

Adventurous               43

Family-oriented           38

Knowledgeable             37

Resilient                 36

Table 6

Code Relationship in the Matrix Form

                   inspiring       justice        bravery

inspiring              0              1              0
justice                1              0              2
bravery                0              2              0
leadership             3              1              0
talented               1              0              2
accomplished           6              5              5
helpful                i              3              3
hard-working           0              0              2
intelligent            1              0              3

                                                   accom-
                   leadership      talented       plished

inspiring              3              1              6
justice                1              0              5
bravery                0              2              5
leadership             0              2              6
talented               2              0              ii
accomplished           6              11             0
helpful                2              0              7
hard-working           0              0              7
intelligent            0              1              8

                                    hard-
                    helpful        working      intelligent

inspiring              1              0              1
justice                3              0              0
bravery                3              2              3
leadership             2              0              0
talented               0              0              1
accomplished           7              7              8
helpful                0              4              0
hard-working           4              0              4
intelligent            0              4              0

Table 7

Categories Generated by SPSS Text Mining

Category                        Frequency

Academic                           257

Employment                         255

Artistic                           174

Family-relatedness                 143

Membership of associations         121

Leadership                         58

Politics                           43

Sport                              40

Business                           31

Military                           20