Jesse Bering, a cognitive psychologist in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas, has created one of the first experimental programs in the world that brings together three previously unconnected areas: cognitive science, evolutionary theory and existential psychology. His most recent research will soon be published in the American Psychology Association's flagship journal, Developmental Psychology. Another more general article on Bering's work, "The Cognitive Psychology of Belief in the Supernatural," has just been published in the March-April issue of American Scientist. Numerous media have cited Bering's research, including The London Times and Science & Theology News.In fall 2005, he served as an international fellow of the newly formed Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen's University, Belfast, Ireland, a research center with a strong focus on cognition and religion.In his research, Bering is studying the natural psychological bases for religious belief. He examines the fundamental question "Is God all in your head?" from an evolutionary perspective.In 1996, Bering was a student on an anthropology fellowship. He spent the summer studying a 450-pound silverback gorilla named King, who had been trained to entertain audiences by climbing atop a 20-gallon drum three times a day and belly dancing for a head of lettuce.Bering found himself wondering what King would think of God - or if he thought of God at all."We tend to think that the answers to the biggest mysteries in life are somewhere 'out there' in the mysterious universe, when really it's the peculiar way our brains have evolved over the past several hundred thousand years that compels us to ask questions such as 'why am I here?' or 'what happens after I die?' in the first place," Bering said.

He recently conducted an experiment with children from 3 to 7 years old to see how they perceived unexpected events. He told each child that "Princess Alice," a friendly magic princess who could make herself invisible, would help them play a game in which they guessed which one of two boxes held a hidden ball. Bering designed the game so a picture would fall unexpectedly to the ground and a table lamp would flash on and off during the experiment.Bering found that the oldest children were the most likely to believe that Alice was communicating with them, while the youngest simply shrugged their shoulders. Bering concluded that the three-year-olds were better scientists than the older children since they gave more plausible reasons for the unexpected events. The reason: the younger children had yet to develop the critical psychological ability to see such events as omens or symbols. "It's a bit of a leap," Bering said, "but we can imagine how these capacities play out in the real world when people reason about the symbolic 'meaning' of, say, natural disasters." Bering cites the remarks of New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin, who suggested that Hurricane Katrina was God's wake-up call to African Americans about rampant urban violence.

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