“When we fall under the spell of a charismatic figure, areas of the brain responsible for scepticism and vigilance become less active. That’s the finding of a study which looked at people’s response to prayers spoken by someone purportedly possessing divine healing powers.
To identify the brain processes underlying the influence of charismatic individuals, Uffe Schjødt of Aarhus University in Denmark and colleagues turned to Pentecostal Christians, who believe that some people have divinely inspired powers of healing, wisdom and prophecy.
Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), Schjødt and his colleagues scanned the brains of 20 Pentecostalists and 20 non-believers while playing them recorded prayers. The volunteers were told that six of the prayers were read by a non-Christian, six by an ordinary Christian and six by a healer. In fact, all were read by ordinary Christians.
Only in the devout volunteers did the brain activity monitored by the researchers change in response to the prayers. Parts of the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices, which play key roles in vigilance and scepticism when judging the truth and importance of what people say, were deactivated when the subjects listened to a supposed healer. Activity diminished to a lesser extent when the speaker was supposedly a normal Christian (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, DOI: 10.1093/scan/nsq023).
Schjødt says that this explains why certain individuals can gain influence over others, and concludes that their ability to do so depends heavily on preconceived notions of their authority and trustworthiness.
It’s not clear whether the results extend beyond religious leaders, but Schjødt speculates that brain regions may be deactivated in a similar way in response to doctors, parents and politicians.”
Read more at New Scientist
“Schjødt speculates that brain regions may be deactivated in a similar way in response to doctors, parents and politicians.”
save yer grant money–we dont really need a study to figure this one out. :/
Just like I thought, it’s all in the mind.
Not that people who believe in prayer healing will care of course.
“When we fall under the spell of a charismatic figure, areas of the brain responsible for (…) vigilance become less active.”
Vigilance? That’ll be why I was too distracted to notice I’d knocked over a candle whilst watching Marco Pierre White on Youtube last week and that it was burning my carpet.
Think I’ll leave the proper light on next time…
“When we fall under the spell of a charismatic figure, areas of the brain responsible for scepticism and vigilance become less active.”
My brain must go into melt down when under Derren’s spell then …. for never have i had the pleasure to meet a more charismatic character than he .. x
If we fake that .. the brain probably shows the same .. or is it simply faking we need to see to those pente costal christians. Is it just how we would name it ourselves, how much we value that, look upon it.
People being at a concert, a show .. etc … won\’t they show the same brain patterns?
Dont people want to be influenced ? And don\’t they choose by what they want to be influenced ?
I don\’t get this type of research .. there\’s only a few on this planet that are driven into religion and such without knowing what they are doing. Part of them knows. They have reasons most of the time. Life itself probably.
I’d say that quite a few people have those particular areas of the brain shut off pernamently…
when i saw the title my first thought was of someone in a coma becoming brain dead after a faith healing session. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone but it would also have had more of an effect than a study that will be ignored by the religious (I’ve got nothing against people of faith but far to many allow themselves to be had by twisted fools with a little charisma) and tell the rest of us what we already know.
Can someone repeat this experiment but with a load of Apple fanboys listening to a Steve Jobs speech? Or is the result just too predictible…?