Coherence and the memorability of supernatural concepts

A prominent theory in the cognitive science of religion proposes that supernatural concepts share a common structure that contributes to their cultural success. While concepts of all kinds - i.e., natural and supernatural - are theorized to rely on inferences drawn from intuitive ontological categories, supernatural concepts also violate these ontological categories. A few violations of intuitive ontologies promote memorability, however, too many violations cause concepts to degrade, reducing recall. Therefore, the optimal template for supernatural concepts is a minimally counterintuitive structure, containing a few, but not too many violations (Boyer, 2001). Here, we focus on so-called maximally counterintuitive concepts, which possess many violations are theorized to be recalled poorly. Sommer, Musolino, and Hemmer (2022) suggested that this lower recall might not be the result of ontological violations, but the lower coherence of supernatural characteristics. In two studies, we examine predictions from the coherence account of maximally counterintuitive concepts. In Study 1, we compare the coherence of participant-generated natural and supernatural concepts and find lower coherence for the latter. Additionally, our results suggest that lab-designed maximally counterintuitive concepts may have poor ecological validity. In Study 2, we assess memorability of high vs. low coherence natural and supernatural concepts. Our findings suggest that supernatural concepts with many violations may be poorly recalled because of low coherence, rather than because too many ontological violations render them difficult to represent in the mind.