[Vision2020] Losing Your Religion? Analytic Thinking Weakens Religious Belief

[Art Deco]

Losing Your Religion? Analytic Thinking Weakens Religious Belief
By Alexandra Sifferlin <http://healthland.time.com/author/asifferlin/> |
@acsifferlin <http://www.twitter.com/acsifferlin> | April 27, 2012 |
+<http://healthland.time.com/2012/04/27/losing-your-religion-analytic-thinking-weakens-religious-belief/#comments>
 Tweet <http://twitter.com/share>
 [image: Getty Images]
Getty Images
Simply viewing an image of Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker" promotes
religious disbelief.

Most of the world’s population believes in God, or gods, but alongside them
there are also hundreds of millions of nonbelievers. What makes one a
believer or not?

Religious faith is likely a complex phenomenon, shaped by multiple aspects
of psychology and culture, say the authors of a new study. But the
researchers, Ara Norenzayan and Will Gervais of the University of British
Columbia in Canada, showed in a series of clever studies that at least one
factor consistently appears to decrease the strength of people’s religious
belief: analytic thinking.

“Religion is such a big force in the world,” says Norenzayan, an associate
professor of psychology. “Hardly a day goes by without allegiances made to
God, but we know very little about it. We are trying to fill this gap in
our knowledge.”

(*MORE**:* Study: Narcissism and Religion an Unethical
Mix<http://healthland.time.com/2012/03/13/study-narcissism-and-religion-an-unethical-mix/>
)

In one study, the researchers correlated participants’ performance on a
test of analytic thinking with measures of their religious belief. The
thinking task included three problems requiring participants to
analytically override their initial intuition. For example, one question
asked: “A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than
the ball. How much does the ball cost?” The immediate, intuitive response
is 10 cents. Those who take the time to figure out the right answer (5
cents) are judged to be more analytical, and these people tended to score
lower on the measures of religious belief.

The team then conducted four other studies showing that when people are
primed to think analytically, it weakens the strength of their religious
belief. In one experiment, researchers asked participants to look at images
of sculpture: either Rodin’s *The Thinker,* a well-known portrayal of deep
thought, or another artwork of a discus thrower that was matched to *The
Thinker* for color and posture. (In a previous trial, the researchers
confirmed that simply viewing Rodin’s work improved people’s performance on
a syllogistic reasoning task.) Those who viewed *The Thinker* were also
significantly less likely than the control group to say they believed in
God.

In other trials, researchers primed analytic thought in subtler ways — for
instance, by asking people to make simple sentences out of words, which
included either thinking-related words like *ponder* or *rational* or
control words like *hammer* and *brown*. Another task asked people to rate
their religious beliefs on a questionnaire presented in one of two fonts: a
clear, easy-to-process font or an italicized type that made the text
difficult to read (previous research has found that presenting information
in hard-to-read type boosts people’s ability to reason). Across the board,
participants who were primed for rational thought were less likely to
express religious belief. What’s more, researchers had measured religious
belief in many of the participants several weeks prior to the analytic
thinking experiments and found no difference between the groups.

(*MORE**:* Religion’s Secret to Happiness: It’s Friends, Not
Faith<http://healthland.time.com/2010/12/12/religions-secret-to-happiness-its-friends-not-faith/>
)

The impact of the thinking tasks was significant, but relatively
small. Reported
*Science* Now<http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/04/to-keep-the-faith-dont-get-analytical.html>
:

“We’re not turning people into atheists,” says Gervais. Rather, when the
questionnaire responses of all subjects in an experiment are taken
together, they indicate a small shift away from religious belief.

There are surely many factors at play here, but the researchers say their
results suggest that one’s style of thought may be a crucial contributor to
religious belief. Intuitive thinkers are more likely to be religious;
analytical types, less so. “One explanation for belief is that it is based
on a number of intuitions we have about the world around us. People don’t
necessarily come to belief because they reason into it. Intuition helps
us,” says Norenzayan.

For instance, the commonly held belief that the mind and soul are distinct
from the body stems from intuition. “It is not based in logic or reason.
That’s not why people find this compelling,” says Norenzayan.

(*MORE**: *How Feelings of Gratitude Breed Happiness and
Well-Being<http://healthland.time.com/2010/11/25/how-feelings-of-gratitude-breed-happiness-and-well-being/>
)

That’s not to say that one way of thinking is more valuable than the other,
only that the friction between intuitive and analytical thinking may help
explain the origins of religious belief — or disbelief. “We know that in
human psychology there are two systems of thinking. System one is
intuitive; it is rapid and effortless. System two is analytical, and is
more reasoned and thoughtful. Our study supports the idea that analytic
thinking can push people away from intuitive thinking,” says Norenzayan.

The authors stress that their findings only scratch the surface of how
religious belief develops. Faith is a complicated thing, influenced by
culture and experience, Norenzayan says, such as those who find religion
during situations of fear or morality. “We are not saying that analytical
thinking turns people against religion. … There are lots of things going
on,” says Norenzayan. “Our findings do not suggest one form of thinking is
better than the other either. We don’t believe that. Both are important and
both have costs and benefits.”

The study was published
<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6080/493>Thursday in the
journal
*Science.*

*SPECIAL**:* The Great Introverts and Extroverts of Our
Time<http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/27/the-great-introverts-and-extroverts-of-our-time/slide/moses-religious-leader/#moses-religious-leader>
 Read other related stories about this:

   - Analytical Thinkers Seem to Be Less Religious, Study
Suggests<http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=664125>
   HealthDay
   - To Keep the Faith, Don't Get
Analytical<http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/04/to-keep-the-faith-dont-get-analytical.html>
Science
   Now
   - Study of the Day: Even the Religious Lose Faith When They Think
   Critically<http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/04/study-of-the-day-even-the-religious-lose-faith-when-they-think-critically/256402/>
The
   Atlantic



-- 
Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)
art.deco.studios at gmail.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20120427/16e7ad8f/attachment-0001.html>