http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120426143856.htm
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/
120426143856.htm
Analytic Thinking Can Decrease Religious Belief, Study Shows
The statue "The Thinker," by Auguste Rodin. (Credit: © Ignatius Wooster /
Fotolia)
ScienceDaily (Apr. 26, 2012) A new University of British Columbia study finds
that analytic thinking can decrease religious belief, even in devout believers.
The study, which is published in the April 27 issue of Science, finds that
thinking analytically increases disbelief among believers and skeptics alike,
shedding important new light on the psychology of religious belief.
"Our goal was to explore the fundamental question of why people believe in a
God to different degrees," says lead author Will Gervais, a PhD student in
UBC's Dept. of Psychology. "A combination of complex factors influence matters
of personal spirituality, and these new findings suggest that the cognitive
system related to analytic thoughts is one factor that can influence disbelief."
Researchers used problem-solving tasks and subtle experimental priming
including showing participants Rodin's sculpture The Thinker or asking
participants to complete questionnaires in hard-to-read fonts to successfully
produce "analytic" thinking. The researchers, who assessed participants' belief
levels using a variety of self-reported measures, found that religious belief
decreased when participants engaged in analytic tasks, compared to participants
who engaged in tasks that did not involve analytic thinking.
The findings, Gervais says, are based on a longstanding human psychology model
of two distinct, but related cognitive systems to process information: an
"intuitive" system that relies on mental shortcuts to yield fast and efficient
responses, and a more "analytic" system that yields more deliberate, reasoned
responses.
"Our study builds on previous research that links religious beliefs to
`intuitive' thinking," says study co-author and Associate Prof. Ara Norenzayan,
UBC Dept. of Psychology. "Our findings suggest that activating the `analytic'
cognitive system in the brain can undermine the `intuitive' support for
religious belief, at least temporarily."
The study involved more than 650 participants in the U.S. and Canada. Gervais
says future studies will explore whether the increase in religious disbelief is
temporary or long-lasting, and how the findings apply to non-Western cultures.
Recent figures suggest that the majority of the world's population believes in
a God, however atheists and agnostics number in the hundreds of millions, says
Norenzayan, a co-director of UBC's Centre for Human Evolution, Cognition and
Culture. Religious convictions are shaped by psychological and cultural factors
and fluctuate across time and situations, he says.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by University of
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University of British Columbia (2012, April 26). Analytic thinking can decrease
religious belief, study shows. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 27, 2012, from
http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2012/04/120426143856.htm
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Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis
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ScienceDaily or its staff.
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