Vera Pereira

Faculty of Human and Social Sciences - New University of Lisbon, Philosophy, Research Fellow

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PhD in Evolutionary Psychology

Current research interests:

Psychological and evolutionary foundations of religious belief and experience;
Ontogenetic and phylogenetic development of the Self;
Intuitive notions of 'Self' and 'Body'.
Supervisors: Rodrigo Sá-Saraiva and Luís Faísca

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Papers by Vera Pereira

Origens Psicológicas Das Crenças Na Vida Após a Morte: Aplicação De Uma Perspectiva Evolutiva Ao Estudo Do Pensamento Religioso

This dissertation addressed the psychological origins of afterlife beliefs. Afterlife beliefs are... more This dissertation addressed the psychological origins of afterlife beliefs. Afterlife beliefs are found in every human culture, and were probably already present in pre-historical cultures of Homo sapiens. The recurrence and prevalence over time of afterlife beliefs, suggest that despite their intercultural variation, they may depend on universal cognitive processes. In order to test the hypothesis that psychological constraints are responsible for the development of intuitive /implicit ideas about the continuation of the self after death three empirical studies were conducted, using both qualitative and quantitative techniques,. The results of these studies suggest that cognitive and phenomenological processes connected with self-awareness guide the representation of being dead thus creating the tendency to represent the dead-I as capable of perceptual, emotional, desire and epistemic mental states. This tendency seems to be independent on explicit afterlife beliefs, although these...

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Immortality of the Soul as an Intuitive Idea: Towards a Psychological Explanation of the Origins of Afterlife Beliefs

Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2012

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Immortality of the Soul as an Intuitive Idea

This study tried to investigate if intuitive ideas about the continuation of the Self after death... more This study tried to investigate if intuitive ideas about the continuation of the Self after death determine the way people represent the state of being dead, and, in this way, investigate possible psychological origins of afterlife beliefs, which constitute a recurrent cultural phenomenon. A semi-structured interview and a self-report questionnaire were used to obtain information on the experience of imagining oneself as dead and the representation of the dead-I of young adults. The results suggest that (1) there is a tendency to imagine the state of being dead as a continuation of the I, even in the absence of explicit afterlife beliefs; (2) perceptual, emotional, epistemic and desire experiences are associated to the dead-I; (3) the representation of the dead-I seems to be determined by an interaction between cognitive processes related to self-awareness and theory of mind, and the cultural afterlife beliefs explicitly learned. A previous alternative hypothesis, suggesting that simulation constraints were responsible for the emergence of non-reflective afterlife concepts is not completely supported by our results. The data presented here suggest that immortality of the soul might be an intuitive religious concept, connected to the experience of the Self and to the implicit theorization that the experienced Self is independent from the body. Future studies should focus on the collection of cross-cultural and developmental data.

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Talks by Vera Pereira

A Religião como fenómeno natural

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Origens Psicológicas Das Crenças Na Vida Após a Morte: Aplicação De Uma Perspectiva Evolutiva Ao Estudo Do Pensamento Religioso

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Immortality of the Soul as an Intuitive Idea: Towards a Psychological Explanation of the Origins of Afterlife Beliefs

Journal of Cognition and Culture, 2012

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Immortality of the Soul as an Intuitive Idea

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A Religião como fenómeno natural

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Vera Pereira

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