Believing in other minds: Accurate mentalizing does not predict religiosity

Vonk, Jennifer; Pitzen, Jerrica

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2016.06.008

Cited by 38 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Other evidence has suggested the direct link between mentalizing and supernatural belief is small (Lindeman et al, 2015; Maij et al, 2017; Vonk & Pitzen, 2017). The indirectness of this relationship may explain why.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Cognitive Biases and Religious Belief: A Path Model Replication in the Czech Republic and Slovakia With a Focus on Anthropomorphism

Willard

Cingl

Norenzayan

2019

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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We examined cognitive biases that underlie individual differences in supernatural beliefs in nationally representative samples from the Czech Republic and Slovakia (total N = 2,022). These countries were chosen because of their differing levels of religious belief despite their cultural similarity. Replicating a previous study with North American samples, we found that anthropomorphism was unrelated to belief in God but was consistently related to paranormal beliefs. Living in a highly religious area was related to a lower tendency to anthropomorphize. We examined this relationship further to find that anthropomorphism was related to belief in God for nonreligious participants, was inversely related to belief in God among religious Slovaks, and not related for religious Czechs. These findings suggest that anthropomorphism predicts belief in God for people who are unaffiliated, but this relationship disappears or is reversed for religious believers participating in a Christian religious tradition.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Cognitive Biases and Religious Belief: A Path Model Replication in the Czech Republic and Slovakia With a Focus on Anthropomorphism

Willard

Cingl

Norenzayan

2019

Social Psychological and Personality Science

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“…Importantly, they found that it was the ability to mentalize that mediated the negative relationship between autism and religious belief. Lowicki and Zajenkowski (2016Zajenkowski ( , 2017 and Vonk and Pitzen (2017) note that aspects of ASD-such as low emotional intelligence-are negatively associated with religious belief. Again, these are the aspects of ASD that relate to the ability to develop a sound theory of mind.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Myth of the Stupid Believer: The Negative Religiousness–IQ Nexus is Not on General Intelligence (g) and is Likely a Product of the Relations Between IQ and Autism Spectrum Traits

Dutton¹,

Nijenhuis

Metzen³

et al. 2019

J Relig Health

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Numerous studies have found a negative relationship between religiousness and IQ. It is in the region of − 0.2, according to meta-analyses. The reasons for this relationship are, however, unknown. It has been suggested that higher intelligence leads to greater attraction to science, or that it helps to override evolved cognitive dispositions such as for religiousness. Either way, such explanations assume that the religion-IQ nexus is on general intelligence (g), rather than some subset of specialized cognitive abilities. In other words, they assume it is a Jensen effect. Two large datasets comparing groups with different levels of religiousness show that their IQ differences are not on g and must, therefore, be attributed to specialized abilities. An analysis of the specialized abilities on which the religious and non-religious groups differ reveals no clear pattern. We cautiously suggest that this may be explicable in terms of autism spectrum disorder traits among people with high IQ scores, because such traits are negatively associated with religiousness.

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“…As to the relationship between mentalizing and supernatural beliefs, evidence suggests the link is small, and depending on the study somewhat tenuous (Lindeman et al, 2015;Maij et al, 2017;Vonk & Pitzen, 2017). The indirectness of this relationship may be part of the explanation.…”

Section: Mentalizing and Anthropomorphismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive Biases and Religious Belief: A path model replication in the Czech Republic and Slovakia with a focus on anthropomorphism

Willard¹,

Cingl²,

Norenzayan³

2018

Preprint

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A previous study explored the cognitive biases that underlie individual differences in supernatural beliefs using path models in samples of Canadian and Americans (Willard and Norenzayan, 2013). We replicated and extended these path models in new nationally representative samples from the Czech Republic and Slovakia (total N = 2022). As in the original model, we found that anthropomorphism was unrelated to belief in God, but was consistently related to paranormal beliefs. Living in a highly religious area was related to a lower tendency to anthropomorphize. We further examined this relationship and found that anthropomorphism is related to belief in God for non-religious participants only, and is inversely related to belief in God among religious Slovaks, but not religious Czechs. These findings suggest that religious beliefs and societal context can change the relationship between cognitive biases and supernatural beliefs.

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Believing in other minds: Accurate mentalizing does not predict religiosity

Cited by 38 publications

References 41 publications

Cognitive Biases and Religious Belief: A Path Model Replication in the Czech Republic and Slovakia With a Focus on Anthropomorphism

Cognitive Biases and Religious Belief: A Path Model Replication in the Czech Republic and Slovakia With a Focus on Anthropomorphism

The Myth of the Stupid Believer: The Negative Religiousness–IQ Nexus is Not on General Intelligence (g) and is Likely a Product of the Relations Between IQ and Autism Spectrum Traits

Cognitive Biases and Religious Belief: A path model replication in the Czech Republic and Slovakia with a focus on anthropomorphism

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