The association between material constraints and religious cognitions

Despite growing interest in the role of ritual, symbolism, and culture in religious belief, the influence of material forms on religious cognition has received comparatively little attention. This dissertation develops a material-centred account of religious cognition, proposing that physical objects, architectural forms, and ritual materials may contribute to shaping religious belief and practice. While past psychological research has often treated material artefacts as expressions of pre-existing religious beliefs, this work suggests that the properties and constraints of physical materials themselves could play a role in the evolution of religious beliefs and practices. Integrating perspectives from the cognitive science of religion, anthropology, religious studies, and archaeology, the thesis advances a theoretical framework in which material forms are understood as co-constitutive of religious cognition. The argument is developed through three empirical case studies. The first case (Chapters 2 and 3) examines Indian Buddha statues from the Gandhara, Gupta, and Pala periods, exploring how locally available materials—such as schist, sandstone, and bronze—constrained sculptural form and, through perceptual cues like pointedness and roundness predicts the attribution of traits such as warmth and competence to the Buddha. The second case (Chapter 4), published in Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology, draws on architectural and ritual data from 121 pre-industrial religious sites catalogued in the Database of Religious History. The analysis indicates that ecological and material constraints likely shaped architectural form, which in turn was associated with different styles of worship. The third case (Chapter 5) investigates the Christian communion ritual, focusing on how the sensory qualities of communion wine—its taste and colour—may affect worshippers’ perceptions of Jesus during ritual. Taken together, these cases suggest that artistic and ritual representations are not simply reflections of religious belief but may also shape how individuals conceptualise the supernatural. Physical materials, sometimes selected for practical or environmental reasons, influence the forms that religious art and architecture take, which can in turn affect religious cognition. By highlighting this reciprocal relationship between material form and religious thought, the research offers a framework for understanding how ecological, historical, and cognitive factors interact to shape religious belief systems.