Part I -- 1: Chinese Religious Exceptionalism, David Palmer -- 2: Chinese Psychological Exceptionalism, Li-Jun Ji, Emily Chan -- 3: China and Dualism: Lessons for the Cognitive Science of Religion, Edward Slingerland -- Part II -- 4: Promiscuous Teleology: From Childhood through Adulthood and from East to West, Deborah Kelemen -- 5: Smart Gods are Easier than Dumb Gods: Revisiting the Preparedness Hypothesis, Tyler Greenway -- 6: Ritual Imbalance in Contemporary China: A Ritual Form Theory Analysis, Brianna Bentley, et al -- 7: Religion is Kid’s Stuff: Minimally Counterintuitive Concepts are Better Remembered by Young People, Justin Gregory -- 8: The Naturalness of Vitalistic Reasoning, Melanie Nyhof, Psychology -- 9: What Happens After Death? Liqi Zhu -- Part III -- 10: God Concepts in Pre-Qin Dynasty Texts, Ryan Nichols -- 11: Player Reports of Spiritual Experiences in Chinese World of Warcraft, Ryan Hornbeck -- 12: Religion and Wellbeing – A World Values Survey Analysis, Michael Bond and Vivan Lun.

Are human tendencies toward religious and spiritual thoughts, feelings, and actions outcomes of “natural” cognition? This volume revisits the “naturalness theory of religious cognition” through discussion of new qualitative and quantitative studies examining the psychological foundations of religious and spiritual expression in historical and contemporary China. Naturalness theory has been challenged on the grounds that little of its supporting developmental and experimental research has drawn on participants from predominantly secular cultural environments. Given China’s official secularity, its large proportion of atheists, and its alleged long history of dominant, nonreligious philosophies, can any broad claim for religion’s psychological “naturalness” be plausible?  Addressing this empirical gap, the studies discussed in this volume support core naturalness theory predictions for human reasoning about supernatural agency, intelligent design, the efficacy of rituals, and vitalistic causality. And yet each study elucidates, expands upon, or even challenges outright the logical assumptions of the naturalness theory. Written for a non-specialist audience, this volume introduces the naturalness theory and frames the significance of these new findings for students and scholars of cultural psychology, the psychology of religion, the anthropology of religion, and Chinese Studies.

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