The secular benefits of religious practices

How does science, the quintessential secular enterprise, study religion? What can we learn about religion by applying the tools of scientific method, and what can religion teach secularists about how to build thriving societies? In this episode, social psychologist Dr Kitty O'Lone from Cambridge University's Woolf Institute joins ePODstemology host Dr Mark Fabian to discuss these and other questions pertaining to the secular benefits of religious practices. Dr O'Lone discusses her previous work on interfaith dialogue, her new work on religious forgiveness and its role in healing post-conflict societies, and her ambition of studying the similarities and differences between religious and secular fasting practices. The episode also ranges over mindfulness and the two-way learning that has taken place between academics and traditional communities of practice, the vacuum left by the disappearance of priest's from everyday life, whether science really offers 'explanations' for seemingly supernatural phenomena like sleep paralysis,  and want the frontiers are in the social psychology of religion. Please tune in.

SHOW NOTES AND LINKS

https://www.woolf.cam.ac.uk/people/katherine-olone

Atkinson, Quentin. D and Pierre Bourrat. 2011. “Beliefs about God, the afterlife and morality support the role of supernatural policing in human cooperation.” Evolution and Human Behavior, 32 (1): 41-49.

Boyd, Robert., Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles and Peter J. Richerson. 2003. “The evolution of altruistic punishment.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. USA, 100: 3531–3535. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0630443100

Carlsmith, Kevin M., John M. Darley and Paul H. Robinson. 2002. “Why do we punish? Deterrence and just desserts as motives for punishment.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83: 284–299.

Nikiforakis, Nikos and Dirk Engelmann. 2011. “Altruistic Punishment and the Threat of Feuds.” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 78 (3): 319-332. 

Johnson, Kathryn A. and Adam B. Cohen. 2016. “Authoritarian and benevolent god representations and the two sides of prosociality.” Behavioral And Brain Sciences 39: 32. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X15000461

Karremans, Johan C and Paul A. M. Van Lange. 2004. “Back to caring after being hurt: The role of forgiveness.” European Journal of Social Psychology 34: 207-227. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.192

https://med.virginia.edu/perceptual-studies/category/books-by-dops/study-of-reincarnation/

Pettigrew, T. F. (1998). Intergroup contact theory. Annual Review of Psychology, vol. 49, pp. 65-85

Van Elk, M., Karinen, A., Specker, E., Stamkou, E. and Baas, M. (2016). 'Standing in Awe': The effects of awe on body perception and the relation with absorption. Collabra, vol. 2, no. 1.