A person’s religious beliefs weaken after solving an analytical problem, a study published in the journal Science has revealed. The authors say the results offer clues about the brain mechanisms that govern religious beliefs.
Psychologists divide thoughts into two types: intuitive, which are faster and require less effort, such as knowing if a person is angry by looking at their face; and analytical thoughts, which are the most deliberate, and are used to solve logic or mathematical problems.
“From other studies it is known that religious beliefs are built on intuitive thoughts”, explains Will Gervais, from the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and co-author of the study. Now, scientists have found the opposite effect, that is, that just as intuitive thinking favors religious beliefs, analytical thinking should weaken them.
For this, they carried out several experiments in which the volunteers answered a questionnaire on religious beliefs after undergoing different tests in which they had to reason analytically, while others solved tests in which this type of thinking was not encouraged. The researchers found that the people who had done the analytical exercises had weaker beliefs than the others. Furthermore, in a questionnaire prior to the experiments, no differences were found in terms of religious beliefs between the two groups, so it is unlikely that the cause of the results obtained afterwards was due to the fact that one team was more religious than another.
However, the effects of these ‘manipulations’ should be of no concern to anyone. “We are not making people atheist,” clarifies Daniel Kahneman. This psychologist and Nobel Prize in Economics has been one of the pioneers in research on the influence of analytical and intuitive thoughts on decision-making. “What this work shows is that, when you think more critically and reflectively, you are more prone to reject some statements that you would otherwise approve,” he adds. What these results suggest is that, apart from other cognitive and cultural factors, intuitive thinking is an essential ingredient in religious thinking.
