Dr Jonathan Jong

Jonathan Jong

Research Affiliate

Jonathan Jong is the Deputy Director of the Belief, Brain, and Behaviour research group at Coventry University’s Centre for Research in Psychology, Behaviour, and Achievement. He is also the Research Co-ordinator of the Cognition and Culture Lab at ICEA. Jonathan’s research focuses on the interaction between emotion and cognition, and especially on the role of negative emotions (e.g., anxiety) in belief formation and maintenance. Jonathan is also currently pursuing research on group behaviour, aggression, agency detection, and the philosophical implications of recent developments in cognitive science of religion for religious belief.

Selected Publications

Jackson, J., Halberstadt, J., Jong, J., & Felman, H. (2015). Perceived openness to experience accounts for religious homogamy. Social Psychological and Personality Science. DOI: 10.1177/1948550615574302

Jong, J. (2015). On (not) defining (non)religion. Science, Religion and Culture, 2, 15-24 .

Jong, J., Kavanagh, C., & Visala, A. (2015). Born idolaters: The limits of the philosophical implications of the cognitive science of religion. Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie, 57, 244-266.  

Jong, J. (2014, November 11). How not to criticise the (evolutionary) cognitive science of religion. Marginalia Review of Books. Retrieved from http://marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org/criticize-evolutionary-cognitive-science-religion/.

Jong, J. (2014). Ernest Becker’s psychology of religion: a view from social cognitive psychology. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science, 49, 875—889.

Jong, J., & Visala, A. (2014). Three quests for human nature: some philosophical reflections. Philosophy, Theology, and the Sciences, 1, 146—171.

Halberstadt, J., & Jong, J. (2014). Scaring the bejesus into people: the role of religious belief in managing implicit and explicit anxiety. In J. Forgas and E. Harmon-Jones (Eds.), Motivation and its regulation: the control within (pp. 331—350). New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Jong, J. (2013). Implicit measures in the experimental psychology of religion. In G. Dawes, & J. Maclaurin. A new science of religion (pp. 65—78). New York, NY: Routledge. 

Jong, J. (2013). On faith and the fear of fatality: a review of recent research on death and deities. Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion, 1, 193—214.

Jong, J., Bluemke, M., & Halberstadt, J. (2013). Fear of death and supernatural beliefs: developing a new Supernatural Belief Scale to test the relationship. European Journal of Personality, 27, 495—506.

Dawes, G., & Jong, J. (2012). Defeating the Christian’s claim to warrant. Philo, 15, 127—144.

Jong, J. & Halberstadt, J., Bluemke, M. (2012). Foxhole atheism, revisited: The effects of mortality salience on explicit and implicit religious belief. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 983—989.