Religions permeate the lives of billions and are hypothesised to play an essential role in normative behaviour. Yet, little is known about how religious devotion penetrates cognitive computations during decision-making. I fill this lacuna by proposing a computational model of religious decision-making. In this model, religious belief, forged through religious practice, forms strong priors in the mind. When the mind simulates possible actions during decision-making, religious actions become readily available and likely selected due to their high value. To empirically develop the model, I will determine how religious belief affects the strength of religious priors during normative decision-making in various laboratory and field studies. Moreover, in a large-scale cross-cultural study, I will establish how beliefs and practices of different religious traditions affect cognitive computations during normative decisions. The project will producing one of a kind, comprehensive model of how religions shape the mind.

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