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Processes of Believing: The Acquisition, Maintenance, and Change in Creditions pp 111–123Cite as

Neural Underpinnings of the Human Belief System

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Part of the book series: New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion ((NASR,volume 1))

Abstract

Human beings are wired to believe. These beliefs – including moral, legal, political, and religious beliefs – are extremely important because they can define a person’s character and influence decision-making processes. Recent neuroimaging and lesion studies have shown that these beliefs have neural underpinnings in the human brain. This chapter reviews the current research on the human social belief system and its neural correlates. There is no evidence of dedicated brain systems uniquely devoted to a specific kind of human social belief. The studies reviewed in this chapter highlight a core set of regions within the prefrontal cortex, in association with the anterior temporal lobe, reward circuit, and limbic regions, that appear to critically mediate a variety of social belief systems.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, Brain Injury Research, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

    Irene Cristofori & Jordan Grafman

  2. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Irene Cristofori & Jordan Grafman

  3. Department of Neurology, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Jordan Grafman

Authors
  1. Irene Cristofori
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  2. Jordan Grafman
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jordan Grafman .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Catechetics and Religious Education, Karl-Franzens University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Hans-Ferdinand Angel

  2. Pontifical University Antonianum, Rome, Italy

    Lluis Oviedo

  3. Department of Psychology, Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, USA

    Raymond F. Paloutzian

  4. Department of Theology, University of Uppsala, Uppsala, Sweden

    Anne L.C. Runehov

  5. Department of Neurology, Centre for Neurology and Neuropsychiatry, LVR-Klinikum Düsseldorf, Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Rüdiger J. Seitz

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Cristofori, I., Grafman, J. (2017). Neural Underpinnings of the Human Belief System. In: Angel, HF., Oviedo, L., Paloutzian, R., Runehov, A., Seitz, R. (eds) Processes of Believing: The Acquisition, Maintenance, and Change in Creditions. New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion , vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-50924-2_8

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