Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:30:13.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Culturally transmitted misbeliefs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 January 2010

Dan Sperber
Dan Sperber
Affiliation:
Institut Jean Nicod, ENS, 75005 Paris, France. dan.sperber@gmail.comwww.dan.sperber.fr
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most human beliefs are acquired through communication, and so are most misbeliefs. Just like the misbeliefs discussed by McKay & Dennett (M&D), culturally transmitted misbeliefs tend to result from limitations rather than malfunctions of the mechanisms that produce them, and few if any can be argued to be adaptations. However, the mechanisms involved, the contents, and the hypothetical adaptive value tend to be specific to the cultural case.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 32 , Issue 6 , December 2009 , pp. 534 - 535
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Atran, S. & Norenzayan, A. (2004) Religion's evolutionary landscape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27:713–70.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyer, P. (1994) The naturalness of religious ideas: A cognitive theory of religion. University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mascaro, O. & Sperber, D. (2009) The moral, epistemic, and mindreading components of children's vigilance towards deception. Cognition 112(3):367–80.Google Scholar
Origgi, G. (2004) Is trust an epistemological notion? Episteme 1(1):61–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D. (1982) Apparently irrational beliefs. In: Rationality and relativism, ed. Lukes, S. & Hollis, M., pp. 149–80. Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sperber, D. (1985) Anthropology and psychology: Towards an epidemiology of representations. (The Malinowski Memorial Lecture, 1984). Man (New Series) 20:73–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D. (1990) The epidemiology of beliefs. In: The social psychological study of widespread beliefs, ed. Fraser, C. & Gaskell, G., pp 25–44. Clarendon Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D. (1997) Intuitive and reflexive beliefs. Mind and Language 12(1):67–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sperber, D., Clément, F., Heintz, C., Mascaro, O., Mercier, H., Origgi, G. & Wilson, D. (forthcoming) Epistemic vigilance. Mind and Language.Google Scholar