Jon Lanman

Jon Lanman is a Professor of Cognitive Anthropology and the Assistant Director of the Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen's University Belfast.13 He joined the school in 2012 after working as a Departmental Lecturer and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oxford.1

Academic Background

Professor Lanman holds a DPhil and MSc in Anthropology from Oxford University, an MA in Religious Studies from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and a BA in English from Southeast Missouri State University.12

Research Interests

His research focuses on two main areas within the scientific study of religion:

1. Atheism & Secularization: Lanman investigates why some individuals become theists or non-theists, why some nations have higher proportions of non-theists, and why some non-theists engage in anti-religious social action.1

2. Religious Identity, Ritual, and Self-Sacrifice: He studies the nature and catalysts of religious cohesion and the factors contributing to an individual's willingness to die for a religious group.1

Notable Projects

• Programme Lead on the "Explaining Atheism" project, which aims to test various theories about atheism and its prevalence in different countries.1
• Principal Investigator on the John Templeton Funded grant "Understanding Unbelief" (2017-2020), a large international research program on unbelief around the world.12

Professional Roles

• President of the International Association for the Cognitive and Evolutionary Sciences of Religion (elected in 2022).1
• Previously served as Secretary General of the International Association for the Cognitive Science of Religion (elected in 2018).1

Professor Lanman's work integrates theories and methodologies from social, cognitive, and evolutionary sciences with ethnographic and historical research, focusing on the North Atlantic world and Japan.1