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participants prior religious beliefs and their performance in the study. Analytic
thinking reduced religious belief regardless of how religious people were to be
gin with.
In a final study, Gervais and Norenzayan used an even more subtle way of activat
ing analytic thinking: by having participants fill out a survey measuring their
religious beliefs that was printed in either clear font or font that was difficu
lt to read. Prior research (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17999571) has sho
wn that difficult-to-read font promotes analytic thinking by forcing participant
s to slow down and think more carefully about the meaning of what they are readi
ng. The researchers found that participants who filled out a survey that was pri
nted in unclear font expressed less belief as compared to those who filled out t
he same survey in the clear font.
These studies demonstrate yet another way in which our thinking tendencies, many
of which may be innate, have contributed to religious faith. It may also help e
xplain why the vast majority of Americans tend to believe in God. Since System 2
thinking requires a lot of effort (http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/xge/139/4/66
5), the majority of us tend to rely on our System 1 thinking processes when poss
ible. Evidence suggests that the majority of us are more prone to believing than
being skeptical. According to a 2005 poll (http://www.gallup.com/poll/16915/thr
ee-four-americans-believe-paranormal.aspx) by Gallup, 3 out of every 4 Americans
hold at least one belief in the paranormal. The most popular of these beliefs a
re extrasensory perception (ESP), haunted houses, and ghosts. In addition, the r
esults help explain why some of us are more prone to believe that others. Previo
us research has found that people differ in their tendency to see intentions (ht
tp://pps.sagepub.com/content/5/3/219.short) and causes (http://www.sciencedirect
.com/science/article/pii/S0010027709000146) in the world. These differences in t
hinking styles could help explain why some of us are more likely to become belie
vers.
Why and how might analytic thinking reduce religious belief? Although more resea
rch is needed to answer this question, Gervais and Norenzayan speculate on a few
possibilities. For example, analytic thinking may inhibit our natural intuition
to believe in supernatural agents that influence the world. Alternatively, anal
ytic thinking may simply cause us to override our intuition to believe and pay l
ess attention to it. Its important to note that across studies, participants rang
ed widely in their religious affiliation, gender, and race. None of these variab
les were found to significantly relate to peoples behavior in the studies.
Gervais and Norenzayan point out that analytic thinking is just one reason out o
f many why people may or may not hold religious beliefs. In addition, these find
ings do not say anything about the inherent value or truth of religious beliefsth
ey simply speak to the psychology of when and why we are prone to believe. Most
importantly, they provide evidence that rather than being static, our beliefs ca
n change drastically from situation to situation, without us knowing exactly why
.
Are you a scientist who specializes in neuroscience, cognitive science, or psych
ology? And have you read a recent peer-reviewed paper that you would like to wri
te about? Please send suggestions to Mind Matters editor Gareth Cook, a Pulitzer
prize-winning journalist at the Boston Globe. He can be reached at garethideas
AT gmail.com or Twitter @garethideas.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)
Daisy Grewal received her PhD in social psychology from Yale University. She is
a researcher at the Stanford School of Medicine.