Divine Intuition: Cognitive Style Influences Belief in God

Shenhav, Amitai; Rand, David G.; Greene, Joshua D.

doi:10.1037/e519702015-023

Cited by 142 publications

(262 citation statements)

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“…First, the results provide the first successful conceptual replication from an independent research lab of the highly debated results presented in Rand et al [15], using the conceptual priming technique [49] rather than the uniquely utilized time-pressure manipulation [36,37]. By means of conceptual replication, the results therefore validate the conceptual priming finding by showing that it extends to social dilemmas involving structural inequality.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 69%

“…This research has demonstrated the power of these specific primes to promote intuitive versus reflective thinking in the domain of religious belief, and these findings were validated in a subsequent study using a different method [50]. The present research used the identical prime used in Rand et al's Study 8 [15,49]. Prior to the measurement of the main dependent variable, participants were asked to write about a time in their life where intuition worked out well, or reflection worked out poorly (both promoting intuition); or the opposites (both promoting reflection).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Participants (60% females) were on average 29.37 years (SD = 8.65, ranging from 18-61). Cognitive processing was manipulated using a conceptual prime that was well-established and used in previous research [49]. This research has demonstrated the power of these specific primes to promote intuitive versus reflective thinking in the domain of religious belief, and these findings were validated in a subsequent study using a different method [50].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spontaneous Giving Under Structural Inequality: Intuition Promotes Cooperation in Asymmetric Social Dilemmas

Lotz

2014

SSRN Journal

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The present research investigates the role of intuitive mental processing on cooperation in experimental games involving structural inequality. Results from an experiment using conceptual priming to induce intuitive mental processing provide the first evidence that cooperation is promoted by intuition in an asymmetric context that distributes the gains from cooperation unequally among a group. Therefore, the results extend our understanding of the cognitive underpinnings of human cooperation by demonstrating the robustness of intuitive cooperation in games involving structural inequality regarding asymmetric gains from cooperation. Additionally, the results provide the first successful conceptual replication of the intuition-cooperation link using conceptual priming, therefore also contributing to the debate about the validity of previous research in other contexts. Taken together, the present research contributes to the literature on psychological and institutional mechanisms that promote cooperation.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spontaneous Giving Under Structural Inequality: Intuition Promotes Cooperation in Asymmetric Social Dilemmas

Lotz

2014

SSRN Journal

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“…Consequently, our results are in line with other studies suggesting that gamblers are more impulsive (e.g., MacLaren et al 2012;Marmurek et al 2015;Michalczuk et al 2011;Miedl et al 2014), have higher levels of narcissism (e.g., Lakey et al 2008), have lower levels of self-control (e.g., Slutske et al 2012), more frequently show gambling-related irrational thinking patterns (e.g., Ellery and Stewart 2014;Fortune and Goodie 2012;Studer et al 2014;Rogers 1998), and are more susceptible to superstition (Joukhador et al 2004). Beyond gambling and related tasks, lower CRT scores also predict religious and other paranormal beliefs (Gervais and Norenzayan 2012;Pennycook et al 2012;Shenhav et al 2012). Pennycook et al suggest that ''supernatural belief is a default state that requires some level of analytic processing to override'' (p. 344).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Betting on Illusory Patterns: Probability Matching in Habitual Gamblers

et al. 2015

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Why do people gamble? A large body of research suggests that cognitive distortions play an important role in pathological gambling. Many of these distortions are specific cases of a more general misperception of randomness, specifically of an illusory perception of patterns in random sequences. In this article, we provide further evidence for the assumption that gamblers are particularly prone to perceiving illusory patterns. In particular, we compared habitual gamblers to a matched sample of community members with regard to how much they exhibit the choice anomaly 'probability matching'. Probability matching describes the tendency to match response proportions to outcome probabilities when predicting binary outcomes. It leads to a lower expected accuracy than the maximizing strategy of predicting the most likely event on each trial. Previous research has shown that an illusory perception of patterns in random sequences fuels probability matching. So does impulsivity, which is also reported to be higher in gamblers. We therefore hypothesized that gamblers will exhibit more probability matching than nongamblers, which was confirmed in a controlled laboratory experiment. Additionally, gamblers scored much lower than community members on the cognitive reflection task, which indicates higher impulsivity. This difference could account for the difference in probability matching between the samples. These results suggest that gamblers are more willing to bet impulsively on perceived illusory patterns.

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“…In turn, studies in moral psychology reveal that religious belief underlies the opposition to utilitarian sacrifice (Conway & Gawronski, 2013;Piazza & Landy, 2013), owing to a dependence on heuristic approaches to moral decision-making (Hannikainen, Miller & Cushman, 2017;Shenhav, Rand & Greene, 2012). Together these results provide additional grounds to suspect that utilitarian ethics may be proliferating, at least in secularizing societies.…”

Section: Is Utilitarian Sacrifice Becoming More Morally Permissible?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Is utilitarian sacrifice becoming more morally permissible?

2018

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Word count: 1960 (excluding methods, results, references, author contributions and cover page) INCREASING PERMISSIBILITY OF UTILITARIAN SACRIFICE 2 Abstract A central tenet of contemporary moral psychology is that people reject many forms of utilitarian sacrifice. Yet, evidence for secularization and declining empathic concern in recent decades suggests the possibility of systematic change in this attitude. In the present study, we employ hypothetical dilemmas to investigate whether judgments of utilitarian sacrifice are becoming more permissive over time. In a cross-sectional design, age negatively predicted utilitarian moral judgment (Study 1). To examine whether this pattern reflected processes of maturation, we asked a panel to re-evaluate several moral dilemmas after a nine-year interval but observed no overall change (Study 2). In contrast, a more recent age-matched sample revealed greater endorsement of utilitarian sacrifice in a time-lag design (Study 3). Taken together, these results suggest that today's younger cohorts increasingly endorse a utilitarian resolution of sacrificial moral dilemmas.

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Divine Intuition: Cognitive Style Influences Belief in God

Cited by 142 publications

References 0 publications

Spontaneous Giving Under Structural Inequality: Intuition Promotes Cooperation in Asymmetric Social Dilemmas

Spontaneous Giving Under Structural Inequality: Intuition Promotes Cooperation in Asymmetric Social Dilemmas

Betting on Illusory Patterns: Probability Matching in Habitual Gamblers

Is utilitarian sacrifice becoming more morally permissible?

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