Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism

Religious Belief Systems of Persons with High Functioning Autism Catherine Caldwell-Harris (charris@bu.edu) Caitlin Fox Murphy (caitfoxmurphy@gmail.com) Tessa Velazquez (tessav@bu.edu) Department of Psychology, Boston University, 64 Cummington St. Boston, MA 02215 USA Patrick McNamara (mcnamar@bu.edu) Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine 72 E Concord St, Boston, MA 02118 USA Abstract extrapolation informed by a clinical knowledge of HFA (Graetz & Durbin, 2009; Deeley, 2009). Given this gap in the literature, two studies examined the thesis that HFA people's unique cognitive and socio- emotional profile influences their religious behaviors and beliefs. In Study 1, content analysis was conducted of online discussion forum postings. Study 2 consisted of a Questionnaire which directly asked questions about religious belief and included scales measuring thinking styles. The cognitive science of religion is a new field which explains religious belief as emerging from normal cognitive processes such as inferring others' mental states, agency detection and imposing patterns on noise. This paper investigates the proposal that individual differences in belief will reflect cognitive processing styles, with high functioning autism being an extreme style that will predispose towards nonbelief (atheism and agnosticism). This view was supported by content analysis of discussion forums about religion on an autism website (covering 192 unique posters), and by a survey that included 61 persons with HFA. Persons with autistic spectrum disorder were much more likely than those in our neurotypical comparison group to identify as atheist or agnostic, and, if religious, were more likely to construct their own religious belief system. Nonbelief was also higher in those who were attracted to systemizing activities, as measured by the Systemizing Quotient. Prior findings in cognitive science of religion Keywords: Cognitive science of religion; autism; cognitive styles; individual differences Introduction On a discussion forum for Christian parents, a mother conveys her frustration because her 14 year-old high functioning autistic (HFA) son does not believe in God and refuses to write a paper for his confirmation class. On wrongplanet.net and other discussion boards for autistic spectrum individuals, posters denounce supernaturalism, proclaim the merits of their self-constructed theistic belief systems and argue the logical appeal of Buddhism. These observations, combined with recent commentaries about the likely religious beliefs of HFA individuals (Delay, 2009; Graetz & Durbin, 2008), suggest that these individuals’ beliefs may be influenced by their intellectual strengths (e.g. emphasis on logic and attraction to systematizing observables) and their social-emotional deficits (e.g. reduced automatic inferences about mental states and decreased orientation to social rewards). There is currently no systematic study of the religious beliefs of autistic spectrum individuals who have normal or near-normal intelligence (i.e., those with high functioning autism and Asperger's disorder, which we jointly label HFA for descriptive convenience, following Attwood, 2001). Current research is limited to personal observations (Isanon, 2006), case studies (Graetz & Durbin, 2006) and These exploratory studies are grounded on the following assumptions. Religiosity is a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing behaviors, beliefs, and experiences (Fetzer, 1999). Religiosity is thus diverse enough to be a meaningful descriptor for people possessing a range of intellectual abilities, emotional sensitivities, and learning styles. Individual religious beliefs are the outcome of multiple causes, including personality, reasoning style, family socialization, and views of larger society (Caldwell- Harris et al., 2008). The diversity of individuals’ religious beliefs reflects evolved psychological mechanisms, with at least some differences representing diverse tools in humanity's adaptive tool kit. The thinking styles of individuals with HFA are on a continuum with normal functioning and represent a difference, not a deficit (Atwood, 2006). Table 1 lists some specific ways in which known characteristics of HFA may co-occur with distinctive patterns of religiosity. To avoid oversimplifying HFA, religion, and the interactions between HFA and religion, our research will be exploratory, rather than hypothesis-driven. Our framework recognizes the potential for diversity in religious beliefs among HFA individuals, while still supporting the claim that HFA makes a distinctive, measurable, and predictable difference in religiosity. To guide us in the investigation of these hypotheses, we developed a set of Thinking Traits that have been shown