An Analytic Cognitive Style Negatively Predicts a More Literal but Not a More Symbolic Religiosity Type

Freidin, Esteban; Martini, Luz Acera

doi:10.1080/10508619.2020.1868197

Cited by 7 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 42 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Conspiracy beliefs emerge when information is not validated through truth-making institutions with their-at least partly-emphasize on epistemic rationality but accepted "literally" as part of the more general frame of the "evil" elites and the "good" people. The literature has shown that the literal processing of religious content is associated with exclusionary attitudes (Duriez, 2004) and cognitive rigidity, entailing high needs for cognitive closure, dogmatism, and intolerance of ambiguity (Duriez, 2003;Freidin and Acera Martini, 2022). Thus, we hypothesize that the attitudes toward religion that involve a "literal understanding" (literal affirmation and literal disaffirmation) of religious information are positively related to beliefs in conspiracy narratives because both religious attitudes are rooted in intuitive or type 1 reasoning.…”

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 93%

Religion, spirituality, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories: examining the role of analytic thinking and post-critical beliefs

Jedinger,

Siegers

2024

Politics and Religion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the political and scholarly attention on conspiracy theories. Among other predictors, religious and spiritual influences on conspiracy beliefs have been widely discussed in the literature. We suggest analyzing the relationship between religion and spirituality on the one hand and conspiracy beliefs on the other hand from the perspective of religious information processing. Based on the Post-Critical Beliefs Scale (PCBS), we argue that literal interpretations of religious information are positively associated with conspiracy beliefs. Furthermore, we assume that individual differences in analytic cognitive style account for the relationship between religious attitudes, spirituality, and conspiracism. Using a quota sample of German adults, we find that literal interpretations of religious content positively correlate with conspiracy beliefs for the literal affirmation of transcendence (e.g., orthodoxy) and the literal disaffirmation of transcendence (e.g., atheism). These findings suggest that religious information processing is related to conspiracy beliefs for religious and nonreligious individuals. Moreover, our results show a stable association between holistic spirituality and conspiracy beliefs. The relationships between different types of religious attitudes, spirituality, and conspiracy beliefs hold, even after accounting for analytic (versus intuitive) thinking. The implications for the study of religious attitudes and conspiracy beliefs are discussed.

show abstract

Section: Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 93%

Religion, spirituality, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories: examining the role of analytic thinking and post-critical beliefs

Jedinger,

Siegers

2024

Politics and Religion

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…More deliberative (and less intuitive) thinking also correlates negatively with "informal" or "folk beliefs" such as in paranormal phenomena, luck, and superstitions (Aarnio & Lindeman, 2005;Irwin, 1993;Lindeman & Aarnio, 2007;Pennycook et al, 2012), as well as karma . Though the majority of this work looks at Western samples, some research has identified this negative correlation in recent work across multiple cultural, geographical samples (Freidin & Acera Martini, 2022;Gervais et al, 2018;Saribay et al, 2020;Stagnaro et al, 2019;Yilmaz et al, 2016a) -although, as some authors note, the strength and size of the association does vary (Gervais et al, 2018;Majima et al, 2022;Pennycook, Ross, et al, 2016b).…”

Section: Dual Processes and Religious Disbeliefmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the role of analytic thinking in religious belief change: Evidence from over 50,000 participants in 16 countries

Stagnaro,

Pennycook

2024

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Religious beliefs are among the most ubiquitous ideological beliefs in the world and often critical to people’s worldview. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of variability in the strength and persistence of such beliefs, both across and within cultures. Here, we are interested in what underlying cognitive processes are associated with the phenomena of religious belief change. Although previous research has linked the tendency to engage in analytic thinking with religious dis-belief, this work has missed the potentially larger relationship between analytic thinking and belief change more broadly – that is change in any/either direction. Across two large datasets, including 16 countries and 50,827 individuals, we found that roughly 25% of individuals indicated having substantively changing their beliefs at least once. Further, the relationship between analytic thinking and belief change appears independent from the association between analytic thinking and reported level of belief. Therefore, although analytic thinking is generally associated with a decrease in religious belief, we find some evidence that it may also support an increase in belief among those indicating past change. In total, this work provides evidence for a robust link between analytic thinking and religious belief change over time.

show abstract

“…De Cruz, 2014a). Indeed, some of the beliefs that anti‐correlate with reflection test performance—e.g., theism (Byrd, 2021d; Byrd & Sytsma, In preparation; Freidin & Martini, 2021; Gervais et al., 2018; Pennycook et al., 2016)—are precisely the beliefs that some philosophers take to be justified independently of reflection. These philosophers are not alone in treating certain beliefs as less subject to certain epistemic norms than other beliefs: both Children and adults in the US seem to employ different epistemic criteria for scientific explanations or facts than they do for religious, ideological, or ethical beliefs (Cusimano & Lombrozo, 2021; e.g., Heiphetz et al., 2013; Liquin & Lombrozo, 2018; Metz et al., 2018).…”

Section: Reflection and Normativitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflective reasoning & philosophy

Byrd

2021

Philosophy Compass

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

is a philosopher-scientist studying reasoning, technology, and well-being with funding from the John Templeton Foundation, the US Intelligence Community, and various universities. Their graduate education in philosophy and cognitive science was completed at University of Colorado and Florida State University. Byrd also writes for Psychology Today and co-edits the Brains blog. You can find out more at byrdnick.com.

show abstract

An Analytic Cognitive Style Negatively Predicts a More Literal but Not a More Symbolic Religiosity Type

Cited by 7 publications

References 42 publications

Religion, spirituality, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories: examining the role of analytic thinking and post-critical beliefs

Religion, spirituality, and susceptibility to conspiracy theories: examining the role of analytic thinking and post-critical beliefs

On the role of analytic thinking in religious belief change: Evidence from over 50,000 participants in 16 countries

Reflective reasoning & philosophy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About