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An analysis of the relationships between religious orientation, authoritarianism, cross-cultural interactions, and political views
Abstract
This study investigated the connections between religious ideology, authoritarianism, intergroup relations, and political orientation. Building from the psychological literature on religious belief, the current study sought to explore the extent of these relationships using a university sample from the American South. The Diverse Learning Environments survey was administered to undergraduate students , with 2582 responding. Variables of interest were religious belief, authoritarianism, intergroup relation views, diversity-related actions, and political views. Results suggest that while general religious orientation did not correlate positively with authoritarianism, Christians, specifically those associated with Evangelical groups, displayed greater authoritarianism than non-believers and reported fewer diversity-related interactions. While results indicated that more salient religious identity was associated with right-leaning political beliefs, an unexpected finding was that non-belief was associated with greater political involvement. These results suggest patterns of ingroup favoritism among conservative Christians which may lead to outgroup derogation and influence voting patterns.
... Authoritarianism, another personality factor often associated with general religiosity (Cuevas et al., 2022;Lockhart et al., 2023;Shaffer & Hastings, 2007), has rarely been evaluated specifically in the context of religious beliefs. Research on another personal trait, critical thinking, frequently demonstrated an inverse relationship in both experimental and observational studies (Pennycook et al., 2016;Stagnaro et al., 2019). ...
... Studies have also linked intuitive thinking and authoritarianism with greater general religiousness (Wink et al., 2007;Zuckerman et al., 2013), including specifically with beliefs (McCleary et al., 2011;Shenhav et al., 2012;Zuckerman et al., 2013). Agreeableness is often associated with religious fundamentalism, which may explain the overlap with authoritarianism (Cuevas et al., 2022). ...
... It has been studied from the perspective of social psychology (Avendaño et al., 2022;Costello et al., 2022), which analyses its cognitive and attitudinal foundations, and from the viewpoint of political science, which examines its expression in ideological regimes and movements (Arendt, 1951;Ayala-Colqui, 2024;Leite et al., 2024). Beyond macrostructural aspects, the authoritarian attitude also has an impact on the individual level, shaping perceptions, values, and ways of interacting with others (Adorno et al., 1950;Cuevas et al., 2022;Soiné & Lancee, 2025). ...
This study aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Authoritarian Attitude Scale in a sample of high school students from Chile. A total of 775 students (46.5% men; 53.5% women), with an average age of 15.99 years (Sd = 1.32), participated through non-probabilistic convenience sampling in 11 schools. Confirmatory factor analysis supported a three-factor structure with correlated factors and adequate fit indices. Criterion validity revealed positive and significant correlations with the violent behaviour dimension of the antisocial and delinquent behaviour scale. The factorial invariance analysis confirmed configural, weak, strong, and strict equivalence by gender, age and ethnicity, demonstrating model stability. The adoption of the Authoritarian Attitude Scale among Chilean adolescents provides a valid, culturally relevant tool for assessing authoritarian tendencies and understanding psychosocial dynamics in the educational context. The findings offer initial evidence of the scale’s reliability and validity.
... Authoritarianism is also associated with much lower cognitive engagement and the uncritical acceptance of information (Osborne, 2023), associated with the need for 'epistemic certainty' in the form of closure (Van Hiel, et al, 2004), closed-mindedness (Berggren, et al., 2019), or cognitive inflexibility (Cuevas, et al., 2022) (Zmigrod, et al., 2018). De keersmaecker and Roets, (2019) find that those higher on the authoritarian scale are more tolerant of misinformation, while Sinclair, et al. (2020) find that a greater level of RWA increases a person's susceptibility to misinformation. ...
An examination of the literature in misinformation research shows a gap in the area of dehumanization and the related phenomenon of infrahumanization, each of which demonstrates how individuals reduce the human characteristics of others in blatant or subtle ways. This paper examines dehumanizing and infrahumanizing behavior as potential motives and user characteristics in the spread of and belief in misinformation. It is theorized that attitudes expressed against outgroup members reflect the degree to which one infrahumanizes others, with the result that one might more willingly believe and spread misinformation about a targeted outgroup. This paper contributes to the literature in its suggestion of a novel and understudied area in misinformation, identifying key concepts and important considerations for advancing the field of misinformation studies. Exploration de la déshumanisation et de l'infrahumanisation comme facteurs pour la croyance et la propagation de désinformation RésuméUn examen de la littérature sur la recherche portant sur la désinformation révèle une lacune dans le domaine de la déshumanisation et le phénomène relié d'infrahumanisation, chacun démontrant comment les individus réduisent les caractéristiques humaines des autres de façon évidente ou subtile. Cet article analyse les comportements de déshumanisation et d'infrahumanisation comme motifs potentiels et caractéristiques des usagers dans la propagation et la croyance de la désinformation. Il est théorisé que les attitudes exprimées contre les membres hors-groupe reflètent le degré auquel une personne peut en infrahumaniser une autre, avec le résultat que quelqu'un est plus propice de croire et de propager de la désinformation à propos d'un groupe externe ciblé. Cet article contribue à la littérature par sa suggestion d'une zone nouvelle et sous-étudiée de la désinformation, en identifiant les concepts clés et d'importantes considérations pour l'avancement du domaine de l'étude de la désinformation. Mots-clésDésinformation; Déshumanisation; Infrahumanisation; Comportements informationnels
... This ideological orientation is particularly relevant for the next section on political dynamics and LGBTIQ+ norm perceptions. Indeed, in addition to predicting prejudice and low support for LGBTIQ+ rights (McFarland, 2015;Moghaddam & Vuksanovic, 1990;Warriner et al., 2013), RWA predicts nationalism and far-right political behavior (Cuevas et al., 2022;Vilanova et al., 2021) ...
The 21st century has seen dynamic social, legal, and political change regarding the rights and acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex, and queer/questioning (LGBTIQ+) people. This article argues that social norm perceptions—perceptions of other people's opinions in a given social context—and the political dynamics that shape those perceptions are important for understanding differences in LGBTIQ+ acceptance across sociopolitical environments and time periods. Instead of emphasizing “actual” norms—people's opinions on average in different groups—we focus on norm perceptions since people often conform to the attitudes and behaviors held and endorsed by others to achieve social belonging and accuracy in their judgments. We review evidence regarding structural (e.g., laws and institutional decisions), group (e.g., social identities), and individual (e.g., ideology) factors that influence perceptions of, and conformity to, norms of LGBTIQ+ inclusion or exclusion. Drawing on this review, we consider how political dynamics—the ways that civic and political actors make salient, promote, and frame issues, values, and norms in contesting or maintaining the status quo—influence interpretations of, and responses to, norm signals, thus shaping differences in LGBTIQ+ rights norms across contexts and time periods. In conclusion, we chart future areas for research, policy, and practice.
... We first explored whether political orientation was associated with levels of authoritarianism, with, as Jost et al. (2003) suggest, authoritarianism reflecting the tendency to defer to traditional, systematic power structures at the expense of individuals, while in contrast, a lack of authoritarian traits were depicted as the tendency to recognize and sympathize with the plight of individuals who may be marginalized by society. Consistent with prior research, (Calogero et al., 2009;Cuevas & Dawson, 2022a,b;Cuevas et al., 2022;Devine, 2012;Weise et al., 2012) we expected to find a positive relationship between right-leaning political orientation and authoritarian tendencies. We predicted that those who identified as being part of the right side of the political spectrum would display stronger authoritarian traits while those who identified with the left side of the political spectrum would display less authoritarianism. ...
Cultural interactions have been at the forefront of political strife in recent years as authoritarian regimes have come to power across the globe. This warrants investigation by social science researchers in the fields of social psychology, political psychology, and cognitive psychology. This study drew upon those three fields to explore the relationships between political orientation and (1) authoritarian traits, (2) attitudes towards intergroup relations and cross-cultural interactions (CCI), and (3) identity factors, largely through the lens of Social Identity Theory. Participants comprised 2,582 undergraduates at a public university in the U.S. The Diverse Learning Environments survey assessed views on social identity, intergroup relations, political and religious ideology, and social and political issues. Correlational analysis and ANOVA were conducted to determine relationships between variables and differences between groups. Results indicated that the more strongly respondents rated their political orientation as conservative, the more authoritarian traits they tended to report, the less likely they were to engage in CCI, and the more likely they were to hold negative views of those from different backgrounds than themselves. The more respondents rated their political orientation as liberal, the more open they were to diversity and more likely they were to engage in CCI. Identity factors appeared to be more important to conservatives than to liberals in that strength of political ideology was related to common identity characteristics for conservatives but not for liberals.
... La exploración en torno al tema de la participación de las personas en diferentes grupos sociales es diversa (Chayinska et al., 2017); asimismo, se ha demostrado que los habitantes de determinado sector, clase social, grupo etario o nivel educativo, tienen diferentes filiaciones relacionadas a su identidad social (Chayinska et al., 2019;Cuevas et al., 2022). Estas se movilizan y politizan de acuerdo con intereses particulares expresados durante eventos de congregación frente a un tema específico, una vertiente política o una manifestación de protesta social en determinado contexto; conduciendo a expresiones sincronizadas . ...
Para la Policía Nacional, es de interés analizar las transformaciones que se es-tán forjando en la protesta social; por ello, esta investigación se propone como objetivo plantear una acción institucional de respuesta a las nuevas manifestaciones del fenómeno del vandalismo, durante las protestas sociales, mediante la evaluación de los impactos en la convivencia ciudadana y la identificación de nuevos desafíos en la actividad y el servicio de policía, para fortalecer las capacidades institucionales. El método empleado fue cualitativo-descriptivo. Los hallazgos de la investigación están relacionados con la naturaleza híbrida y compleja del vandalismo, sus causas diversas que abarcan elementos de influencia internacional, las conflictividades sociales, la polarización y el empleo de las vías de hecho por grupos radicales anarquistas. Asimismo, se realiza una caracterización del vandalismo a nivel de su estructura, método, actores, intereses y el impacto negativo en la seguridad y convivencia, que permite establecer como conclusión que no se está ante un fenómeno espontáneo, sino ante un comportamiento colectivo cada vez más organizado y con una intencionalidad de generar caos y miedo. Finalmente, se presentan los desafíos para la Institución y propuestas para afrontar escenarios de alta con-flictividad social y violencia.
... La exploración en torno al tema de la participación de las personas en diferentes grupos sociales es diversa (Chayinska et al., 2017); asimismo, se ha demostrado que los habitantes de determinado sector, clase social, grupo etario o nivel educativo, tienen diferentes filiaciones relacionadas a su identidad social (Chayinska et al., 2019;Cuevas et al., 2022). Estas se movilizan y politizan de acuerdo con intereses particulares expresados durante eventos de congregación frente a un tema específico, una vertiente política o una manifestación de protesta social en determinado contexto; conduciendo a expresiones sincronizadas . ...
Durante las protestas sociales en Colombia, en los últimos años, se han pre-sentado comportamientos e incidentes de violencia como expresión de desacuerdo e indignación ante la defensa y protección de derechos e intereses que, a consideración de parte de la población colombiana, habían sido vulnerados con las políticas de Gobierno. Este contexto motivó el estudio sobre dicho fenómeno social, resultados que se materializaron en el libro; el cual describe categorías, dinámicas y expresiones, sustentadas y circunscritas en dos capítulos: el primero “Manifestaciones de violencia en las protestas sociales en Bogotá. D.C.: una lectura desde la convivencia”, refiere acciones de respuesta frente al vandalismo durante la protesta social como desafíos en la actividad y el servicio de policía. El segundo capítulo “Percepción seguridad ciudadana en Colombia: ¿la protesta social, manifestación de partidos políticos o descontento social?”, analiza la imagen de la Policía Nacional frente a los delitos producto de la protesta social y el sesgo informativo por parte de los medios de comunicación. Como conclusión, se plantea la necesidad de fortalecer las capacidades institucionales ante comportamientos colectivos cada vez más organizados y con la intencionalidad de generar caos y miedo.
... La exploración en torno al tema de la participación de las personas en diferentes grupos sociales es diversa (Chayinska et al., 2017); asimismo, se ha demostrado que los habitantes de determinado sector, clase social, grupo etario o nivel educativo, tienen diferentes filiaciones relacionadas a su identidad social (Chayinska et al., 2019;Cuevas et al., 2022). Estas se movilizan y politizan de acuerdo con intereses particulares expresados durante eventos de congregación frente a un tema específico, una vertiente política o una manifestación de protesta social en determinado contexto; conduciendo a expresiones sincronizadas . ...
La violencia ha sido protagonista infortunada de la protesta social, alentada
por las redes sociales. Objetivos: 1) analizar la percepción de estudiantes universitarios de la imagen de la Policía Nacional de Colombia en convivencia y
seguridad, el Escuadrón Móvil Antidisturbios con relación a la protesta social.
Método: encuestas ponderadas: empleando 80 preguntas, además, se correlacionaron los datos anteriormente obtenidos que midieron la participación en
la acción colectiva y si está influenciada por las tres orientaciones del sistema
político (reglas, roles y valores), correlacionando con un modelo de regresión
logística del alfa de Cronbach. Resultados: El 90,75 % de ellos consideran que no
debería existir el ESMAD, ni acudir ninguna forma de autoridad. Las variables
que influyen en el poder político estadísticamente significativas (p < .001) se
encuentran la seguridad, el uso de la fuerza y los derechos humanos. Asimismo,
los valores y roles, tanto para los estudiantes de instituciones privadas y públicas, también fueron estadísticamente significativos. Discusión: existe un sesgo
informativo en la protesta social, con operación de justicia precaria y sin apoyo
ciudadano. Conclusiones: el sesgo informativo alimentado por algunos grupos
políticos que emplean las redes sociales para ganar adeptos, necesitando otros
estudios asociados con la cultura, los valores y el fortalecimiento del aparato judicial, aumentando las penas, el rechazo social y la garantía de la protesta
... Several of my recent studies and papers have examined the psychological processes related to misinformation and authoritarianism of this nature, including the prejudices associated with it (Cuevas, 2015;Cuevas & Dawson, 2020;Cuevas & Dawson, 2021;Cuevas, et al., 2022). At this point, while the reasons for the spread of misinformation and proliferation of authoritarianism are worth investigating, the real-life consequences should concern every rational citizen. ...
This paper examines the attacks on public education by state lawmakers, ostensibly over Critical Race Theory (CRT) but which are in reality attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Such efforts limit academic freedom and undermine education at both the K-12 and university levels. The attacks come on the heels of decades of mismanagement by state officials at a time when public education has been pushed into a state of crisis.
Religious ideology and extremism have had an increasing influence on political agendas in the United States and much of the developed world in the past 60 years, with right-wing ideology becoming more prevalent this decade. This article serves as a review of studies investigating the correlations between political ideology, religiosity, right-wing authoritarianism, ingroups/outgroups, and prejudice in an attempt to describe and understand the well-established links between these dimensions. We discuss several group-level theories including Terror Management Theory, Social Identity Theory, Realistic Group Conflict Theory among others to frame the intercorrelations of these constructs in an effort to better understand the underlying mechanisms that drive individuals to embody religious and political beliefs. We then discuss individual-level cognitive and psychological differences such as intelligence, cognitive flexibility, and specific biological and neurological limitations of brain function that may influence people to adopt certain religious and political beliefs. Through a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying mechanisms of religious and political extremism, we may be better equipped to assuage the fear and denigration that is associated with many of these beliefs.
While groups have been central to thinking about partisan identity and choices, there has been surprisingly little attention paid to the role of perceptions of the group composition of the parties. We explore this critical linking information in the context of religious groups, some of the chief pivots around which the parties have been sorting. Using three national samples, we show that perceptions of the religious group composition of the parties are often biased—evangelicals overestimate the presence of evangelicals within the Republican Party and the irreligious within the Democratic Party. The key finding is that individuals are far more likely to identify with the party in which they believe their group is well represented—a finding which clarifies the role of party image shifts in constructing partisanship, the limits of the culture war motif, and the importance of social perception in shaping beliefs about party representation.
Research on Intergroup Contact Theory has suggested that more positive environments develop when individuals have greater exposure to diverse groups, though minority students and White students often report different experiences. Literature on higher education institutions has largely been relegated to studies on predominantly White institutions. This study was designed to address that gap by assessing the diversity climate at a large, recently consolidated multi-campus university. Comparisons were made between the two main campuses, one a predominantly White campus (PWC) and the other a more racially diverse campus (DivC). The Diverse Learning Environments survey was administered to 2582 undergraduate students to assess perceptions of diversity climate, racial harassment and campus hostility, likelihood of attrition, satisfaction with the university, and perceptions of professor effectiveness. Results indicated that experiences of harassment correlated with dissatisfaction with the campus and lower perceptions of institutional devotion to diversity, and a greater likelihood that students would choose to transfer. Campus differences in diversity climate are also explored. Views of diversity climate were correlated with perceptions of their professors’ effectiveness. As more colleges across the US continue to consolidate into larger, multi-campus universities, it is essential to consider the diversity climate across campuses with varying demographics and cultures.
Cognitive flexibility is operationalized in the neuropsychological literature as the ability to shift between modes of thinking and adapt to novel or changing environments. Religious belief systems consist of strict rules and rituals that offer adherents certainty, consistency, and stability. Consequently, we hypothesized that religious adherence and practice of repetitive religious rituals may be related to the persistence versus flexibility of one’s cognition. The present study investigated the extent to which tendencies towards cognitive flexibility versus persistence are related to three facets of religious life: religious affiliation, religious practice, and religious upbringing. In a large sample (N = 744), we found that religious disbelief was related to cognitive flexibility across three independent behavioural measures: the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test, Remote Associates Test, and Alternative Uses Test. Furthermore, lower frequency of religious service attendance was related to cognitive flexibility. When analysing participants’ religious upbringing in relation to their current religious affiliation, it was manifest that current affiliation was more influential than religious upbringing in all the measured facets of cognitive flexibility. The findings indicate that religious affiliation and engagement may shape and be shaped by cognitive control styles towards flexibility versus persistence, highlighting the tight links between flexibility of thought and religious ideologies.
Cognitive flexibility refers to the ability to quickly reconfigure our mind, like when we switch between different tasks. This review highlights recent evidence showing that cognitive flexibility can be conditioned by simple incentives typically known to drive lower-level learning, such as stimulus-response associations. Cognitive flexibility can also become associated with, and triggered by, bottom-up contextual cues in our environment, including subliminal cues. Therefore, we suggest that the control functions that mediate cognitive flexibility are grounded in, and guided by, basic associative learning mechanisms, and abide by the same learning principles as more low-level forms of behavior. Such a learning perspective on cognitive flexibility offers new directions and important implications for further research, theory, and applications.
This paper explores the phenomenon in which, for many people, subjective personal belief is viewed as a more accurate representation of reality than objective scientific knowledge developed over the course of human history and transmitted through secular education. The first half of the article is based on personal observations of the author through the lens of a professor and psychologist. The latter half of the article reviews recent empirical psychological research on religious belief and the characteristics that accompany irrational thought processes. The findings suggest that there are a host of factors that research has shown to be linked to religious thought, including the inability of education to create disequilibrium to combat misconceptions, early indoctrination, social pressures, genetic influences, cognitive style, and a lack of analytic processing. Human progress on a variety of fronts will advance unfettered only if education can address issues such as these.
Given the determinant role of ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) in valuation, we examined whether vmPFC lesions also modulate how people scale political beliefs. Patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI; N=102) and healthy controls (HC; N=31) were tested on the Political Belief Task, where they rated 75 statements expressing political opinions concerned with welfare, economy, political involvement, civil rights, war and security. Each statement was rated for level of agreement and scaled along three dimensions: radicalism, individualism, and conservatism. Voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM) analysis showed that diminished scores for the radicalism dimension (i.e., statements were rated as less radical than the norms) were associated with lesions in bilateral vmPFC. After dividing the pTBI patients into three groups, according to lesion location (i.e., vmPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex [dlPFC] and parietal cortex), we found that the vmPFC, but not the dlPFC, group had reduced radicalism scores compared to parietal and HC groups. These findings highlight the crucial role of the vmPFC in appropriately valuing political behaviors and may explain certain inappropriate social judgments observed in patients with vmPFC lesions.
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Abstract We previously demonstrated with fMRI that religious belief depends upon three cognitive dimensions, which can be mapped to activation of specific brain regions. In the present study, we considered the co-activated regions as nodes of three networks corresponding to each Dimension and examined the causal flow within and between these networks to address two important hypotheses that remained untested in our previous work. First, we hypothesized that regions involved in theory-of-mind (ToM) are located upstream the causal flow and drive non-ToM regions, in line with theories attributing religion to evolution of ToM. Second, we hypothesized that differences in directional connectivity are associated with differences in religiosity. To test these hypotheses, we performed a multivariate Granger causality-based directional connectivity analysis of fMRI data to demonstrate the causal flow within religious belief-related networks. Our results supported both hypotheses enumerated above. Religious subjects preferentially activated a pathway from inferolateral to dorsomedial frontal cortex to monitor the intent and involvement of Supernatural Agents (SAs) (intent-related ToM). Perception of SAs engaged pathways involved in fear regulation and affective ToM. Religious beliefs are founded on semantic knowledge for doctrine, but also on episodic memory and imagery. Beliefs based on doctrine engaged a pathway from Broca's to Wernicke's language areas. Beliefs related to everyday life experiences engaged pathways involved in imagery. Beliefs implying less involved SAs and evoking imagery activated a pathway from right lateral temporal to occipital regions. This pathway was more active in non-religious compared to religious subjects, suggesting greater difficulty and procedural demands for imagining and processing the intent of SAs. Insights gained by Granger connectivity analysis inform us about the causal binding of individual regions activated during religious belief processing.
We tested the hypothesis, derived from terror management theory, that mortality salience would increase intergroup bias between minimal groups. After assignment to groups, participants wrote about death or a neutral topic, and rated the personality characteristics of the ingroup and outgroup. Results supported the hypothesis.
Previous terror management theory research has shown that mortality salience (MS; a death reminder) leads to the derogation of those who are perceived to be threats to or violators of one’s cultural worldview. Immigrants may be viewed as such a threat, but not necessarily to all majority group members of the culture. The studies presented here tested the hypothesis that, depending upon the nature of the participants’ worldview, MS would either increase or decrease liking of an immigrant. After being reminded of their mortality or a control topic, French and American college students evaluated an immigrant. To assess differences in worldview, participants completed a measure of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA). Consistent across two studies, MS led to more negative evaluations of an immigrant among those high in RWA, but more positive evaluations for those low in RWA. Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for understanding the interplay of mortality concerns and RWA in determining attitudes toward immigrants.
Evidence is reviewed pointing to a negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief in the United States and Europe. It is shown that intelligence measured as psychometric g is negatively related to religious belief. We also examine whether this negative relationship between intelligence and religious belief is present between nations. We find that in a sample of 137 countries the correlation between national IQ and disbelief in God is 0.60.
The psychological processes of doubting and skepticism have recently become topics of neuroscientific investigation. In this context, we developed the False Tagging Theory, a neurobiological model of the belief and doubt process, which proposes that the prefrontal cortex is critical for normative doubt regarding properly comprehended cognitive representations. Here, we put our theory to an empirical test, hypothesizing that patients with prefrontal cortex damage would have a doubt deficit that would manifest as higher authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism.
Ten patients with bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), 10 patients with damage to areas outside the vmPFC, and 16 medical comparison patients, who experienced life-threatening (but non-neurological) medical events, completed a series of scales measuring authoritarianism, religious fundamentalism, and specific religious beliefs.
vmPFC patients reported significantly higher authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism than the other groups. The degrees of authoritarianism and religious fundamentalism in the vmPFC group were significantly higher than normative values, as well; by contrast, the comparison groups did not differ from normative values. Moreover, vmPFC patients reported increased specific religious beliefs after brain injury.
The findings support the False Tagging Theory and suggest that the vmPFC is critical for psychological doubt and resistance to authoritarian persuasion.
Some have argued that belief in God is intuitive, a natural (by-)product of the human mind given its cognitive structure and social context. If this is true, the extent to which one believes in God may be influenced by one's more general tendency to rely on intuition versus reflection. Three studies support this hypothesis, linking intuitive cognitive style to belief in God. Study 1 showed that individual differences in cognitive style predict belief in God. Participants completed the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT; Frederick, 2005), which employs math problems that, although easily solvable, have intuitively compelling incorrect answers. Participants who gave more intuitive answers on the CRT reported stronger belief in God. This effect was not mediated by education level, income, political orientation, or other demographic variables. Study 2 showed that the correlation between CRT scores and belief in God also holds when cognitive ability (IQ) and aspects of personality were controlled. Moreover, both studies demonstrated that intuitive CRT responses predicted the degree to which individuals reported having strengthened their belief in God since childhood, but not their familial religiosity during childhood, suggesting a causal relationship between cognitive style and change in belief over time. Study 3 revealed such a causal relationship over the short term: Experimentally inducing a mindset that favors intuition over reflection increases self-reported belief in God.
Substantial differences exist in the cognitive styles of liberals and conservatives on psychological measures. Variability in political attitudes reflects genetic influences and their interaction with environmental factors. Recent work has shown a correlation between liberalism and conflict-related activity measured by event-related potentials originating in the anterior cingulate cortex. Here we show that this functional correlate of political attitudes has a counterpart in brain structure. In a large sample of young adults, we related self-reported political attitudes to gray matter volume using structural MRI. We found that greater liberalism was associated with increased gray matter volume in the anterior cingulate cortex, whereas greater conservatism was associated with increased volume of the right amygdala. These results were replicated in an independent sample of additional participants. Our findings extend previous observations that political attitudes reflect differences in self-regulatory conflict monitoring and recognition of emotional faces by showing that such attitudes are reflected in human brain structure. Although our data do not determine whether these regions play a causal role in the formation of political attitudes, they converge with previous work to suggest a possible link between brain structure and psychological mechanisms that mediate political attitudes.
This article seeks to unify two subfields of psychology that have hitherto stood separately: evolutionary psychology and intelligence research/differential psychology. I suggest that general intelligence may simultaneously be an evolved adaptation and an individual-difference variable. Tooby and Cosmides's (1990a) notion of random quantitative variation on a monomorphic design allows us to incorporate heritable individual differences in evolved adaptations. The Savanna–IQ Interaction Hypothesis, which is one consequence of the integration of evolutionary psychology and intelligence research, can potentially explain why less intelligent individuals enjoy TV more, why liberals are more intelligent than conservatives, and why night owls are more intelligent than morning larks, among many other findings. The general approach proposed here will allow us to integrate evolutionary psychology with any other aspect of differential psychology.
Analyzing political conservatism as motivated social cognition integrates theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity), epistemic and existential needs (for closure, regulatory focus, terror management), and ideological rationalization (social dominance, system justification). A meta-analysis (88 samples, 12 countries, 22,818 cases) confirms that several psychological variables predict political conservatism: death anxiety (weighted mean r = .50); system instability (.47); dogmatism-intolerance of ambiguity (.34); openness to experience (-.32); uncertainty tolerance (-.27); needs for order, structure, and closure (.26); integrative complexity (-.20); fear of threat and loss (.18); and self-esteem (-.09). The core ideology of conservatism stresses resistance to change and justification of inequality and is motivated by needs that vary situationally and dispositionally to manage uncertainty and threat.
Estimates of the degree of genetic and environmental influences on religiousness have varied widely. This variation may, in part, be due to age differences in the samples under study. To investigate the heritability of religiousness and possible age changes in this estimate, both current and retrospective religiousness were assessed by self-report in a sample of adult male twins (169 MZ pairs and 104 DZ pairs, mean age of 33 years). Retrospective reports of religiousness showed little correlation difference between MZ (r=.69) and DZ (r=.59) twins. Reports of current religiousness, however, did show larger MZ (r=.62) than DZ (r=.42) similarity. Biometric analysis of the two religiousness ratings revealed that genetic factors were significantly weaker (12% vs. 44%) and shared environmental factors were significantly stronger (56% vs. 18%) in adolescence compared to adulthood. Analysis of internal and external religiousness subscales of the total score revealed similar results. These findings support the hypothesis that the heritability of religiousness increases from adolescence to adulthood.
The study explores whether people are more inclined to accept a conclusion that confirms their prior beliefs and reject one they personally object to even when both follow the same logic. Most of the prior research in this area has relied on the informal reasoning paradigm; in this study, however, we applied a formal reasoning paradigm to distinguish between cognitive and motivational mechanisms leading to myside bias in reasoning on value-laden topics (in this case abortions). Slovak and Polish (N = 387) participants indicated their attitudes toward abortion and then evaluated logical syllogisms with neutral, pro-choice, or pro-life content. We analysed whether participants’ prior attitudes influenced their ability to solve these logically identical reasoning tasks and found that prior attitudes were the strongest predictor of myside bias in evaluating both valid and invalid syllogisms, even after controlling for logical validity (the ability to solve neutral syllogisms) and previous experience of logic.
We present new data about the correlation between religiosity and cognitive abilities. At the individual level of analysis the correlation is r = −0.199 and at the country level of analysis the correlation is r = −0.420 with a test of fluid intelligence and r = −0.536 with PISA 2015 science scores. These correlations can be reduced by partialling out measures of traditional values, power distance and conservatism/liberalism. They can also be reduced by partialling out economic and political indices. Our findings indicate that it is the broad Conservative Syndrome that correlates negatively with cognitive abilities, and religiosity is only a part of it. Cognitive ability is becoming an increasingly important predictor of social conservatism.
Research on the dispositional origins of political preferences is flourishing, and the primary conclusion drawn from this work is that stronger needs for security and certainty attract people to a broad-based politically conservative ideology. Though this literature covers much ground, most integrative assessments of it have paid insufficient attention to the presence and implications of contingencies in the relationship between dispositional attributes and political attitudes. In this article, we review research showing that relationships between needs for security and certainty and political preferences vary considerably—sometimes to the point of directional shifts—on the basis of (1) issue domain and (2) contextual factors governing the content and volume of political discourse individuals are exposed to. On the basis of this evidence, we argue that relationships between dispositional attributes and political preferences vary in the extent to which they reflect an organic functional resonance between dispositions and preferences or identity-expressive motivation to adopt a political attitude merely because it is discursively packaged with other need-congruent attitudes. We contend that such a distinction is critical to gaining a realistic understanding of the origins and nature of ideological belief systems, and we consequently recommend an increased focus on issue-based and contextual variation in relationships between dispositions and political preferences.
Beliefs profoundly affect people's lives, but their cognitive and neural pathways are poorly understood. Although previous research has identified the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) as critical to representing religious beliefs, the means by which vmPFC enables religious belief is uncertain. We hypothesized that the vmPFC represents diverse religious beliefs and that a vmPFC lesion would be associated with religious fundamentalism, or the narrowing of religious beliefs. To test this prediction, we assessed religious adherence with a widely-used religious fundamentalism scale in a large sample of 119 patients with penetrating traumatic brain injury (pTBI). If the vmPFC is crucial to modulating diverse personal religious beliefs, we predicted that pTBI patients with lesions to the vmPFC would exhibit greater fundamentalism, and that this would be modulated by cognitive flexibility and trait openness. Instead, we found that participants with dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) lesions have fundamentalist beliefs similar to patients with vmPFC lesions and that the effect of a dlPFC lesion on fundamentalism was significantly mediated by decreased cognitive flexibility and openness. These findings indicate that cognitive flexibility and openness are necessary for flexible and adaptive religious commitment, and that such diversity of religious thought is dependent on dlPFC functionality.
Through measures of orthodoxy, images of God, and instrumental beliefs, scholars of the social scientific study of religion have been able to demonstrate how abstract and specific religious beliefs influence political and social attitudes. Building upon this work, this article uses a unique data set to measure social and prosperity gospel support. Further, it examines the roots and political behavioral consequences of support to these religious ideologies. The results show that religious tradition, congregational messages, and social demographics all influence doctrinal support. However, these relationships are conditional upon race. The results also show that the social gospel promotes an emphasis on the structural sources of social problems and the importance of rehabilitation, which leads to higher levels of self-expressed liberalism and democratic identification. Conversely, the prosperity gospel promotes holding individuals accountable for social problems and punishing deviant behavior, which leads to higher levels of self-expressed conservatism and Republican identification. The data also suggest that race matters, as the relationship between prosperity gospel support and political attitudes is more powerful for blacks than whites.
The political environment for evangelical Protestants has changed substantially since the Christian Right reached its apex, as a more issue and ideologically diffuse political environment has emerged. The present study tests two different theoretical perspectives on whether these contextual changes may have altered Millennial evangelicals’ political perspectives vis-à-vis those of previous generations of evangelicals. On the one hand, theoretical perspectives related to differential political socialization processes across generations would lead to expectations of generational change among evangelicals. On the other hand, theoretical perspectives related to social identity theory would suggest far less change across generations. Using Pew's 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, we test these expectations by comparing the relationships between religiosity and political attitudes across three generations of evangelicals. Ordered probit and logistic regression models estimate the impact of religiosity on various political attitudes. These models reveal that Millennial evangelical religiosity continues to be strongly related to Republican Party identification and opposition toward abortion, which is largely consistent with the social identity perspective. Generational change is most evident in a variety of nonsocial issues in which religiosity is associated with less conservatism among Millennials. Additional analysis using the 2012 Religion and Politics Survey with a smaller sample of Millennial evangelicals confirms these results.
Religion is the most segregated arena of American life, but its effect on collegiate diversity outcomes has been overlooked, despite the significance of both race and religion in many students’ lives. This study examines whether religious observance, religious worldview identification, and participation in a religious student organization are significantly related to cross-racial interaction (CRI), a form of bridging social capital, during college. The current study yielded largely positive relationships between general religiosity and CRI. General religiosity was also positively linked to CRI for Asian American, white, and black students. CRI was higher for students from minority religious backgrounds. Participation in campus religious groups was nonsignificant, regardless of the racial composition of the group. Findings are surprising given previous work that has mainly found negative relationships between religion and diversity-related outcomes in college. We discuss implications for the study of the campus climate and the effect of religion on campus race relations.
The exploration of the religious underpinnings of intolerance has long focused on the effects of religious behaviors and beliefs, but has ignored a variety of important facets of the religious experience that should bear on tolerance judgments: elite communication, religious values about how the world should be ordered, and social networks in churches. We focus on the communication of religious values and argue specifically that values should affect threat judgments and thus affect tolerance judgments indirectly. We test these assertions using data gathered in a survey experiment and find that priming exclusive religious values augments threat and thus reduces tolerance.
Based on the reasoning that religious groups evidence intergroup processes that can create prejudice, two studies examined the relation between religiosity and attitudes toward religious and non-religious others. In both studies, among more religious individuals, attitudes toward religious others were very positive and attitudes toward non-religious others were quite negative. These relations emerged on all measures of traditional religiosity used. Some prejudice against religious others existed among less religious individuals, but it was less pronounced and less pervasive than the prejudice of more religious people. It is suggested that intergroup processes such as competition between religious groups for resources or value promotion likely foster prejudice against religious outgroup members, perhaps irrespective of personal religious orientation.
The study of students' sense of validation holds promise for understanding college student retention and success, but more research is needed regarding the generalizability and use of the concept. The development of quantitative measures can help facilitate use across student populations in multiple types of institutions of higher education. The present study empirically examines two validation constructs, student perceptions of academic validation in the classroom and general interpersonal validation, in a new nationally available instrument, the Diverse Learning Environments (DLE) survey. Construct validity and cross-validation tests indicate that survey items tap into these latent factors for students of color and White students, and that students of color perceive lower levels of both forms of validation compared to White students. These factors and survey items may be used in future research to examine the relationship between validation, student experiences, and educational outcomes.
Some argue that there is an organic connection between being religious and being politically conservative. We evaluate an alternative thesis that the relation between religiosity and political conservatism largely results from engagement with political discourse that indicates that these characteristics go together. In a combined sample of national survey respondents from 1996 to 2008, religiosity was associated with conservative positions on a wide range of attitudes and values among the highly politically engaged, but this association was generally weaker or nonexistent among those less engaged with politics. The specific political characteristics for which this pattern existed varied across ethno-religious groups. These results suggest that whether religiosity translates into political conservatism depends to an important degree on level of engagement with political discourse.
A meta-analysis of 63 studies showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity. The association was stronger for college students and the general population than for participants younger than college age; it was also stronger for religious beliefs than religious behavior. For college students and the general population, means of weighted and unweighted correlations between intelligence and the strength of religious beliefs ranged from -.20 to -.25 (mean r = -.24). Three possible interpretations were discussed. First, intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma. Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs. Third, several functions of religiosity, including compensatory control, self-regulation, self-enhancement, and secure attachment, are also conferred by intelligence. Intelligent people may therefore have less need for religious beliefs and practices.
The article explores four possible explanations for the lower levels of political tolerance of evangelical Christians. First, these differences could be spurious, due to demographic differences. Second, evangelicals may be less tolerant of atheists, homosexuals, and communists, but more tolerant of groups on the other side of the political spectrum, suggesting a group effect. Third, evangelical intolerance may be the result of higher levels of religiosity. Finally, the religious doctrine of evangelicals may produce greater levels of intolerance. Using data from a national survey on tolerance and from the General Social Survey, the article concludes that demographic variables and religiosity are partial explanations for the greater intolerance of evangelicals. Group affect seems to play no role: evangelicals are less tolerant of communists, atheists, racists, and militarists. Finally, religious doctrine plays a major role in explaining evangelical intolerance.
Although most people are religious, there are hundreds of millions of religious disbelievers in the world. What is religious disbelief and how does it arise? Recent developments in the scientific study of religious beliefs and behaviors point to the conclusion that religious disbelief arises from multiple interacting pathways, traceable to cognitive, motivational, and cultural learning mechanisms. We identify four such pathways, leading to four distinct forms of atheism, which we term mindblind atheism, apatheism, inCREDulous atheism, and analytic atheism. Religious belief and disbelief share the same underlying pathways and can be explained within a single evolutionary framework that is grounded in both genetic and cultural evolution.
A collection of 21 previously published essays, some revised for this edition, conveying Allport's scientific humanistic approach to personality, motivational theory, normative problems, and perception and social programs. A 12-page bibliography of Allport's 1921-60 publications is appended. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Studies are reported of university students, and of their parents, that found that religious fundamentalism correlated quite highly with religious ethnocentrism, or the tendency to make "Us vs Them" or "In-group vs Out-group" judgments of others on the basis of religion. Religious fundamentalism was also associated--to lesser degrees--with hostility toward homosexuals and prejudice against various racial-ethnic minorities. Also, fundamentalist students reported receiving strong training in childhood in identifying with the family religion from an early age. But, by comparison, they reported virtually no stress being placed on their racial identification. It is suggested that strong, early emphasis of the family religion may reinforce H. Tajfel's minimal group effect and produce a template for "us-them" discriminations that facilitates acquiring later prejudices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Links between religion and prejudice have been interpreted to suggest that religion can both reduce and exacerbate prejudice. Here, the analysis of religion as a meaning system illuminates how religion can affect intergroup attitudes. Traditional psychological perspectives on religion and prejudice are summarized, followed by a discussion of religion and prejudice in cross-cultural and cross-religious contexts, involving varying target groups. Next, we explore possible explanatory mechanisms by proposing how four levels of meaning associated with religion—cognitive, motivational, societal, and intergroup—may both promote and attenuate prejudice. Finally, additional factors that might facilitate the paradoxical coexistence of religious egalitarian intentions with prejudiced attitudes are considered, and we speculate about the potential for religious groups to reduce prejudice within their adherents.
Uncovering the complex relationships between religiosity and values may provide a better understanding of what it means to be religious or nonreligious. This article reviews research on values and religiosity across cultural and religious groups. Although religious groups differ in the importance they attribute to different values, the pattern of correlations between religiosity and values is strikingly consistent across monotheistic religions: Persons more committed to religion attribute relatively high importance to values expressing motivation to avoid uncertainty and change and relatively low importance to values expressing motivations to follow one's hedonistic desires, or to be independent in thought and action.
Values are viewed as partly based on needs, but little research has been devoted to testing this relationship. The need to attain or avoid cognitive closure may be an important cognitive-motivational factor underlying the endorsement and pursuit of particular values. The present research provided an empirical test of the relations between individual differences in the need for cognitive closure (NFCC) and Schwartz’s ten values. One hundred men and women from a southeastern British university completed measures of NFCC and basic values. Consistent with hypotheses, the results indicated that NFCC was positively associated with valuing security, conformity, and tradition and negatively associated with valuing stimulation and self-direction. In addition, NFCC was unrelated to valuing hedonism, power, universalism, and benevolence, but negatively related to valuing achievement. Consistent with theories of epistemic closure, this research supports the idea that individual differences in NFCC give rise to values which match and satisfy individual needs to attain or avoid cognitive closure.
Scientific interest in the cognitive underpinnings of religious belief has grown in recent years. However, to date, little
experimental research has focused on the cognitive processes that may promote religious disbelief. The present studies apply
a dual-process model of cognitive processing to this problem, testing the hypothesis that analytic processing promotes religious
disbelief. Individual differences in the tendency to analytically override initially flawed intuitions in reasoning were associated
with increased religious disbelief. Four additional experiments provided evidence of causation, as subtle manipulations known
to trigger analytic processing also encouraged religious disbelief. Combined, these studies indicate that analytic processing
is one factor (presumably among several) that promotes religious disbelief. Although these findings do not speak directly
to conversations about the inherent rationality, value, or truth of religious beliefs, they illuminate one cognitive factor
that may influence such discussions.
Although cognitive neuroscience has made remarkable progress in understanding the involvement of the prefrontal cortex in executive control, the broader functional networks that support high-level cognition and give rise to general intelligence remain to be well characterized. Here, we investigated the neural substrates of the general factor of intelligence (g) and executive function in 182 patients with focal brain damage using voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping. The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System were used to derive measures of g and executive function, respectively. Impaired performance on these measures was associated with damage to a distributed network of left lateralized brain areas, including regions of frontal and parietal cortex and white matter association tracts, which bind these areas into a coordinated system. The observed findings support an integrative framework for understanding the architecture of general intelligence and executive function, supporting their reliance upon a shared fronto-parietal network for the integration and control of cognitive representations and making specific recommendations for the application of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale and Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System to the study of high-level cognition in health and disease.
A meta-analytic review of past research evaluated the link between religiosity and racism in the United States since the Civil Rights Act. Religious racism partly reflects intergroup dynamics. That is, a strong religious in-group identity was associated with derogation of racial out-groups. Other races might be treated as out-groups because religion is practiced largely within race, because training in a religious in-group identity promotes general ethnocentrism, and because different others appear to be in competition for resources. In addition, religious racism is tied to basic life values of social conformity and respect for tradition. In support, individuals who were religious for reasons of conformity and tradition expressed racism that declined in recent years with the decreased societal acceptance of overt racial discrimination. The authors failed to find that racial tolerance arises from humanitarian values, consistent with the idea that religious humanitarianism is largely expressed to in-group members. Only religious agnostics were racially tolerant.
That religion is an impactful social category has often been assumed but seldom tested. Based on social identity and self-categorization theories, it is argued that devout religious commitment reflects, at least in part, an individual's motivation to engage in religious self-stereotyping (i.e. to perceive oneself as an exemplary religious group member). In order to test this analysis, individuals scoring high or low on a measure of intrinsic religious orientation received false feedback that either threatened or bolstered their self-perceptions on a dimension of behaviour that was either important or not important to religious group membership. As expected, intrinsic orientation predicted increased religious self-stereotyping only when feedback was threatening and important to religious group membership; affective and behavioural indices revealed a similar pattern. Implications for the social identity/self-categorization literature, and for theory development in the psychology of religion, are subsequently discussed.
The neural bases for devaluing radical political statements revealed by penetrating traumatic brain injury. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience
- I Cristofori
- V Viola
- A Chua
- W Zhong
- F Krueger
- G Zamboni
- J Grafman
Cristofori, I., Viola, V., Chua, A., Zhong, W. Krueger, F., Zamboni, G. & Grafman, J. (2015) The neural bases for
devaluing radical political statements revealed by penetrating traumatic brain injury. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 10, 1038-1044. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsul55
Social issues, authoritarianism, and ideological conceptualization: how policy dimensions and psychological factors influence ideological labeling
- C J Devine
Devine, C.J. (2012) Social issues, authoritarianism, and ideological conceptualization: how policy dimensions and
psychological factors influence ideological labeling. Political Psychology, 33(4), 531-552. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.
1467-9221.2012.00888.x
5 key findings about the changing U.S. religious landscape
- Lipka M.
Lipka, M. (2015) 5 key findings about the changing U.S. religious landscape. Pew Research Center, Washington,
DC. Available at: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/12/5-key-findings-u-s-religious-landscape/
[Accessed 12th May 2015]
America's Changing Religious Landscape
- Pew Research
- Center
Pew Research Center (2015) "America's Changing Religious Landscape". Retrieved 3/6/20, from: https://www.
pewforum.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/7/2015/05/RLS-08-26-full-report.pdf
The changing global religious landscape
- Pew Research
Pew Research. (2017) The changing global religious landscape. Pew Research Center, Washington, DC. Available at:
https://www.pewforum.org/2017/04/05/the-changing-global-religious-landscape/ [Accessed 5th April 2017]