Workshop 2014 (7 of 11) | Cristine Legare | The Coexistence of Natural and Supernatural Explanations across Cultures and Development

In both lay and scientific writing, natural explanations (potentially knowable and empirically verifiable phenomena of the physical world) and supernatural explanations (phenomena that violate or operate outside of, or distinct from, the natural world) are often conceptualized in contradictory or incompatible terms. My research has demonstrated that this common assumption is psychologically inaccurate. I propose instead that the same individuals frequently use both natural and supernatural explanations to interpret the very same events. To support this hypothesis, my colleagues and I reviewed converging developmental data on the coexistence of natural and supernatural explanations from diverse cultural contexts in three areas of biological thought: the origin of species, the acquisition of illnesses, and the causes of death (Legare, Evans, Rosengren, & Harris, 2012; Legare & Visala, 2011; Legare & Gelman, 2008). We identified multiple predictable and universal ways in which both kinds of explanations coexist in individual minds at proximate and ultimate levels of analysis. For example, synthetic thinking (i.e., combining two kinds of explanations without integration), integrative thinking (i.e., integrating two kinds of explanations by distinguishing proximate and ultimate causes), and target-dependent thinking (i.e., two kinds of explanations remain distinct and are used to explain different aspects of an event, depending on contextual information) all illustrate different kinds of explanatory coexistence. We also discovered that supernatural explanations often increase, rather than decrease, with age. Reasoning about supernatural phenomena, in short, seems to be an integral and enduring aspect of human cognition, not a transient or ephemeral element of childhood cognition.

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What is the nature of the human mind? The Emory Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture (CMBC) brings together scholars and researchers from diverse fields and perspectives to seek new answers to this fundamental question. Neuroscientists, cognitive psychologists, biological and cultural anthropologists, sociologists, geneticists, behavioral scientists, computer scientists, linguists, philosophers, artists, writers, and historians all pursue an understanding of the human mind, but institutional isolation, the lack of a shared vocabulary, and other communication barriers present obstacles to realizing the potential for interdisciplinary synthesis, synergy, and innovation. It is our mission to support and foster discussion, scholarship, training, and collaboration across diverse disciplines to promote research at the intersection of mind, brain, and culture. What brain mechanisms underlie cognition, emotion, and intelligence and how did these abilities evolve? How do our core mental abilities shape the expression of culture and how is the mind and brain in turn shaped by social and cultural innovations? Such questions demand an interdisciplinary approach. Great progress has been made in understanding the neurophysiological basis of mental states; positioning this understanding in the broader context of human experience, culture, diversity, and evolution is an exciting challenge for the future. By bringing together scholars and researchers from diverse fields and across the college, university, area institutions, and beyond, the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture (CMBC) seeks to build on and expand our current understanding to explore how a deeper appreciation of diversity, difference, context, and change can inform understanding of mind, brain, and behavior. In order to promote intellectual exchange and discussion across disciplines, the CMBC hosts diverse programming, including lectures by scholars conducting cutting-edge cross-disciplinary research, symposia and conferences on targeted innovative themes, lunch discussions to foster collaboration across fields, and public conversations to extend our reach to the greater Atlanta community. Through our CMBC Graduate Certificate Program, we are training the next generation of interdisciplinary scholars to continue this mission.