Content by Connor Wood, PhD

Connor Wood, PhD is an evolutionary social scientist by training focused on the empirical psychology and anthropology of ritual who is also an adult convert to sacramental Christianity.  He was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Mind and Culture, focusing on the evolutionary study of religion, computer modeling of social processes, and religion-science issues.

In addition to his Substack, Culture Uncurled, Connor’s writings can be found at Science On Religion, Patheos.com, and Huffington Post. Connor’s interests include the evolutionary and cognitive roles of ritual, the influence of religion on health and self-regulation, and the conservative-liberal spectrum in psychology and religion. He also studies the relationship between cognitive style and spirituality at the survey website FaithInDepth.org.

Connor earned a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He then bummed around the world for a couple of years and had adventures, many of which turned out to be more fun to write about than they technically were to have. For example, he once was mugged in Mongolia. Today, Connor is working on a book that applies the cognitive and evolutionary sciences of religion to contemporary political quandaries. He likes climbing mountains in Colorado. Connor’s spirit animal is William James.

Connor was a Sinai and Synapses Fellow from 2013-2015.