Religious Materiality Affects Prosocial Behavior
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Religious traditions around the world rely on a wide variety of texts and material representations to serve as means of cultural transmission in the diachronic scale as well as cognitive and behavioral scaffolds in the synchronic scale. Mythological accounts of anthropomorphic deities and material representations of these deities in varied media bestow stability and motivational force upon more abstract ideologies and moral injunctions. Religious objects, whether they be statues of Hindu deities or icons of Christian saints, are recognized as potent representations of such beings and are treated, at times, as genuine incarnations of the agents they depict. Such artifacts foster behavioral tendencies in line with the religious and moral ideologies of their cultural traditions. |
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