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

Abstract

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.

Cognitive Pathways to Belief in Karma and Belief in God

“…This scale measures an individual's willingness to engage in mentalizing through the self-perceived ease and accuracy in thinking about other people's mental states, e.g., "I find it easy to put myself in somebody else's shoes," "other people tell me I am good at understanding how they are feeling and what they are thinking." By using this measure, we are able to more closely replicate previously-documented associations between mentalizing and belief, which have used the Empathy Quotient questionnaire (e.g., Maij et al, 2017;Willard, Cingl, et al, 2020;Willard & Norenzayan, 2013). Features of God and karma.…”

“…A further advantage of path models is that they can test for indirect, as well as direct, associations between variables, therefore documenting pathways that would be obscured in an ordinary multiple regression. Specifically, we test a previously-demonstrated indirect pathway between mentalizing and belief to see if the small relationship between these variables can be accounted for by their shared relationship with the tendency toward dualistic and teleological thinking (a model shown to predict belief in God and in the paranormal in Willard, Cingl, et al, 2020;Willard & Norenzayan, 2013). We aim to replicate this model when predicting belief in God, and test whether the same model can predict belief in karma.…”

“…The tendency to consider unseen mental states as a source of observable behaviour, the expectation that minds are fundamentally different and separate from physical bodies, and the attribution of function to natural phenomena make it easy to accept culturally-transmitted information about unseen, disembodied supernatural agents that intervene in life events and regulate human behavior. Conversely, there is some evidence that individuals who struggle to understand human minds, who do not espouse dualistic and teleological intuitions, or who tend to override their intuitive reactions in favor of more analytical thinking tend to be less committed to a variety of supernatural and religious beliefs (e.g., Gervais et al, 2018;Pennycook, Ross, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2016;Riekki, Lindeman, & Lipsanen, 2013;Willard, Cingl, & Norenzayan, 2020;Willard & Norenzayan, 2013; but see also Farias et al, 2017;Lindeman, Svedholm-Häkkinen, & Lipsanen, 2015;Maij et al, 2017;Sanchez, Sundermeier, Gray, & Calin-Jageman, 2017).…”

Cognitive pathways to belief in karma and belief in God

“…This scale measures an individual's willingness to engage in mentalizing through the self-perceived ease and accuracy in thinking about other people's mental states, e.g., "I find it easy to put myself in somebody else's shoes," "other people tell me I am good at understanding how they are feeling and what they are thinking." By using this measure, we are able to more closely replicate previously-documented associations between mentalizing and belief, which have used the Empathy Quotient questionnaire (e.g., Maij et al, 2017;Willard, Cingl, et al, 2020;Willard & Norenzayan, 2013). Features of God and karma.…”

“…The tendency to consider unseen mental states as a source of observable behaviour, the expectation that minds are fundamentally different and separate from physical bodies, and the attribution of function to natural phenomena make it easy to accept culturally-transmitted information about unseen, disembodied supernatural agents that intervene in life events and regulate human behavior. Conversely, there is some evidence that individuals who struggle to understand human minds, who do not espouse dualistic and teleological intuitions, or who tend to override their intuitive reactions in favor of more analytical thinking tend to be less committed to a variety of supernatural and religious beliefs (e.g., Gervais et al, 2018;Pennycook, Ross, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2016;Riekki, Lindeman, & Lipsanen, 2013;Willard, Cingl, & Norenzayan, 2020;Willard & Norenzayan, 2013; but see also Farias et al, 2017;Lindeman, Svedholm-Häkkinen, & Lipsanen, 2015;Maij et al, 2017;Sanchez, Sundermeier, Gray, & Calin-Jageman, 2017).…”