Emotionally charged religious content gets remembered and retold more

Evidence

First, information that is emotionally evocative sparks more positive or negative emotional responses that our brains pay attention to, remember, and subsequently transmit. Research by psychologist Dan Gilbert and his colleagues suggests that when mental representations are initially encountered, they are spontaneously perceived to be true, resulting in immediate acceptance; however, when we have strong affective reactions such as disgust and fear, we devote more cognitive resources to the relevant information. This means our memories, and retellings of these memories, have more of this emotionally loaded content, which in turn leaves a stronger mark on what gets culturally transmitted. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 358

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Oprah’s format spawned a named cultural shift toward public emotional confession — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1479; Evangelical conversion is usually a datable, emotionally charged event — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 32