Renato Matoso Brandao- ACT Fellowship – The Cognitive Effects of Religious Thinking: A Cross-Cultural Approach

My research trajectory focuses on the causality of transcendental entities (i.e., how we understand the activity of entities such as God, Platonic Forms, and souls). In earlier work, I developed an interdisciplinary approach to addressing this issue using perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Linguistics. I am now interested in investigating the ways in which religious thinking about transcendence affects our cognitive states, shapes our perception of reality, and enhances our moral character. Although I have received extensive training in Philosophy of the Mind, learning experimental design and data analysis in Psychology and Neurosciences will allow me to better integrate an empirical dimension into my research.
With support from the ACT fellowship, I want to receive training in Cognitive Science and Neuropsychology at INCog, an interdisciplinary research group on Neuroscience and Cognition at PUC-Rio. My prospective mentor is Prof. J. Landeira-Fernandez, a specialist in the quantification of emotional and cognitive traits and co-founder of the journal Psychology & Neuroscience. With Prof. Landeira, I developed a course of studies that comprises undergraduate and graduate-level classes, summer courses, and internships at renowned institutions and laboratories. During the last year of my cross-disciplinary training, I plan to develop a pilot scientific experiment that involves three different Brazilian cultural groups. My objective in this experiment is to measure (a) the extent to which theological argumentation determines religious experiences and (b) the ways in which religious discourse influences the understanding and practice of virtues.
By the end of my ACT fellowship, I will have received a Master´s degree in Neuropsychology with a thesis on the cognitive effects of religious thinking. With the expertise that I acquire during the fellowship, I intend to create the first Latin-American Center of Studies in Cognitive Science of Religion within INCog.