From 2016... This paper argues that panhuman cognitive tendencies explain, in part, the spread and recurrence of ideas about what provides evidence of reincarnation

The Cognitive Foundations of Reincarnation. Claire White. Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, Volume 28, Issue 3, Pages: 264–286. Aug 4 2016. https://doi.org/10.1163/15700682-12341381

Abstract: Anthropological records and psychological studies demonstrate the recurrence of ideas about how to determine the identity of reincarnated persons. These ideas are often incoherent with corresponding theological dogma about the process of reincarnation. Specifically, even though reincarnation is represented as a process of change, people often seek out and interpret particular similarities between the deceased and reincarnated agent as evidence that the two are one and the same person. This paper argues that panhuman cognitive tendencies explain, in part, the spread and recurrence of ideas about what provides evidence of reincarnation: specifically, representations of reincarnated agents are informed and constrained by everyday cognitive intuitions that govern representations of continued identity for intentional agents generally. The paper concludes that these constraints go some way towards explaining the recurrent features of reincarnation concepts and behaviors cross-culturally. 

Keywords: Reincarnation; Personal identity; Cognitive science of religion; Theological incorrectness.

III. General Discussion

This paper is underpinned by the following key question: why do people across the world judge particular types of physical and psychological similarities between the deceased and reincarnated agents as evidence of continued identity? This observation is especially perplexing because the continuity of these features explicitly contradicts the concept of reincarnation as entailing a bodily (and often psychological) change. The findings presented here, from trends observed in the anthropological record – including a quantifiable analysis of the existing reports in North America, a series of controlled studies with U.S. and Jain participants with different beliefs about the afterlife and a survey with western participants who believe they have lived before, suggests a role for the mundane processes of social cognition in explaining the cross-culturally recurrent features of reincarnation beliefs and associated practices. Namely, that despite representing reincarnation as a process of physical change and, in some instances, also subscribing to a view of the self in a process of constant psychological change, people everywhere represent reincarnated agents as retaining distinctive physical features and assuming an underlying psychological stability through the retention of episodic autobiographical memory. These processes are governed by intuitive expectations for agents everywhere, and in the face of explicit doctrine they do not simply “shut off”, but rather, facilitate and constrain so-called “religious” practices in predictable ways. In line with other research in the cognitive science of religion, there are thus cognitive, or natural, foundations to religious concepts. To be clear, the argument advanced here is not that such cognitive processes, in isolation, explain the recurrence of the use of these signs in reincarnation without reference to the sociohistorical processes that also give rise to, and facilitate them. Rather, the claim is that accounting for these representational biases contributes towards a better understanding, and ultimately, explanation, of the transmissive success of reincarnation concepts. Thus, acknowledging the role of the human mind can strengthen existing explanations of reincarnation that hinge upon other psychological or social processes. Take, for instance, the explanation of such practices in the anthropological record previously discussed, that they serve a purpose for the bereaved to have their deceased kin reincarnate to their clan or lineage (Obeyesekere 2002). It may be the case that, for example, these low-level cognitive constraints for human agents previously outlined (i.e., representational content biases), when combined with the strong motivation to identify kin, spread rapidly, especially when such ideas are reinforced by leading religious authorities or they have important consequences for the organization of society (e.g., see Gervais et al. 2011; Nichols 2004). Future programs of research should consider how cognition interacts with culture to produce the similarity, and differences, of reincarnation concepts and associated behaviors cross-culturally. The current research project has taken the first step towards identifying what some of the basic cognitive features in this ultimate explanatory story would be.