Love is in the soul, math is in the brain: Dualist intuitions and belief in psychological science
Abstract
In this research we explore why people have dualist beliefs about certain psychological phenomena (associating them with the soul or spirit rather than the brain), and the consequences of those beliefs for people’s lay conceptions of what science can and cannot explain about how the mind works. We also explore whether dualist beliefs are intuitive and corrected upon reflection or rather held explicitly. We found that the first-person subjective experience (FPSE) of psychological phenomena predicts the extent to which individuals hold dualist beliefs about them (attributing those phenomena more to the soul/spirit and less to the brain). Our results further suggest that individuals are intuitive dualists, expressing different beliefs when making fast vs. slow judgments about the source of psychological phenomena that are associated with a strong FPSE (e.g., falling in love), with fast judgments leaning more towards the soul/spirit and slow judgments towards the brain. This dissociation is not observed for phenomena that do not elicit a FPSE (e.g., reading a map). Finally, this intuitive dualism has consequences for people’s beliefs about science: Phenomena thought to be anchored on a material basis (i.e., the brain) are believed to be more explainable through science than those that are not (an effect supported by both correlational and experimental evidence).
Add the publication’s full text or supplementary notes here. You can use rich formatting such as including code, math, and images.
Francisco Cruz
Invited Assistant Professor
Francisco Cruz is an invited assistant professor in psychology, statistics, and methods at the Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa, and Faculdade de Ciências da Saúde, Universidade Europeia. Junior Consulting Editor at the Journal of European Social Psychology, 2025-present. Social Psychology Ph.D. on lay beliefs about science, supervised by Prof. André Mata (Universidade de Lisboa) and Prof. Tania Lombrozo (Princeton University), 2022-2025. Visiting Student Research Collaborator at Princeton University, 2023-2024. Society for General Psychology and Interdisciplinary Inquiry, Fulbright Portugal, and Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia awardee. His research interests include lay beliefs about science (i.e., what people believe that science can or cannot explain and why), motivated beliefs in science (i.e., the contexts in which people are more prone to accepting scientific explanations), representation of social groups (i.e., how people integrate information to provide judgments on shared homogeneity vs. heterogeneity across group members), epistemic trespassing (i.e., when people provide judgments on domains beyond those in which they are experts), intuitive mind-body dualism (i.e., a natural tendency to see the world as split in material and immaterial portions), and face perception (i.e., features driving the advantage in recall for own- vs. other-race faces).