Revisiting the Relationship between Individual Differences in Analytic Thinking and Religious Belief: Evidence That Measurement Order Moderates Their Inverse Correlation

Prior research has found that persons who favor more analytic modes of thought are less religious. We propose that individual differences in analytic thought are associated with reduced religious beliefs particularly when analytic thought is measured (hence, primed) first. The current study provides...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-09, Vol.10 (9), p.e0138922-e0138922
Main Authors: Finley, Anna J, Tang, David, Schmeichel, Brandon J
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive style
Correlation
Correlation analysis
Critical thinking
Decision making
Female
Humans
Hypotheses
Individuality
Male
Mathematical analysis
Morality
Regression Analysis
Religion
Religious aspects
Religious beliefs
Task Performance and Analysis
Thinking
Young Adult
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Summary:Prior research has found that persons who favor more analytic modes of thought are less religious. We propose that individual differences in analytic thought are associated with reduced religious beliefs particularly when analytic thought is measured (hence, primed) first. The current study provides a direct replication of prior evidence that individual differences in analytic thinking are negatively related to religious beliefs when analytic thought is measured before religious beliefs. When religious belief is measured before analytic thinking, however, the negative relationship is reduced to non-significance, suggesting that the link between analytic thought and religious belief is more tenuous than previously reported. The current study suggests that whereas inducing analytic processing may reduce religious belief, more analytic thinkers are not necessarily less religious. The potential for measurement order to inflate the inverse correlation between analytic thinking and religious beliefs deserves additional consideration.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0138922