VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 31 (UPI) -- Whether a person believes in a higher power might be linked to humans' cognitive ability to infer other people's mental states, researchers in Canada said.
Study leaders Ara Norenzayan and Will Gervais of the University of British Columbia said mentalizing, or "theory of mind," is a psychological concept that describes the ability to understand the mental state of oneself and others which allows people to perceive and interpret human behavior in terms of intentional mental states such as needs, desires, feelings, beliefs, goals, purposes and reasons.