ArticlePublisher preview available

Looks Like It Is Not Causal: Effects of Activation of Religiosity and Spirituality on the Contaminated Mindware

Authors:
Bartłomiej Nowak at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw
Bartłomiej Nowak
Luke A. Myers
Luke A. Myers
Luke A. Myers
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Paweł Brzóska at Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw
Paweł Brzóska
Nicole Duffy
Nicole Duffy
Nicole Duffy
  • This person is not on ResearchGate, or hasn't claimed this research yet.
Show all 6 authorsHide
Read publisher preview
Download citation
To read the full-text of this research, you can request a copy directly from the authors.

Abstract

The present study aimed to investigate the effect of activating religiosity and spirituality on beliefs that comprise contaminated mindware (i.e., paranormal, pseudoscience, and conspiracy beliefs). In order to test this assumption, we conducted three experimental studies (combined sample N = 499) in which religiosity and spirituality were activated (by answering three kinds of questions). Dependent variables were measured by short scales of paranormal, pseudoscientific, and conspiracy beliefs. Obtained results show that activating religiosity and spirituality does not contribute to an increase in beliefs that comprise contaminated mindware. Additional Bayesian analyses show that our data provide at least moderate evidence for the null hypotheses to be true. In the light of conducted experiments, the positive relationship between spirituality, religiosity, and contaminated mindware observed in previous works seems to not have a causal nature. Instead, it may result from indirect factors such as cognitive abilities, cognitive styles, or worldviews.
A preview of this full-text is provided by American Psychological Association.
Learn more
Content available from Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
This content is subject to copyright. Terms and conditions apply.
Psychology of Religion and Spirituality
Looks Like It Is Not Causal: E󰍎ects of Activation of Religiosity and
Spirituality on the Contaminated Mindware
Bartłomiej Nowak, Luke A. Myers, Paweł M. Brzóska, Nicole Du󰍒y, Natasha Good, and Jarosław P. Piotrowski
Online First Publication, April 18, 2024. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000525
CITATION
Nowak, B., Myers, L. A., Brzóska, P. M., Du󰍒y, N., Good, N., & Piotrowski, J. P. (2024). Looks like it is not
causal: E󰍒ects of activation of religiosity and spirituality on the contaminated mindware.. Psychology of
Religion and Spirituality. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/rel0000525
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.
Spirituality is associated with Covid-19 vaccination scepticism
Article
Full-text available
  • Nov 2022
  • VACCINE
Vaccine scepticism poses a significant global health risk, which has again become clear during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Previous research has identified spirituality as an important contributor to general vaccine scepticism. In the present manuscript, we assessed whether self-identified spirituality similarly contributes to scepticism towards Covid-19 vaccines, vaccine uptake, and indecisiveness in intention to be vaccinated. We conducted three studies online in the UK in late 2020, early 2021, and the summer 2021. In Studies 1 and 2 (N = 585), as expected, individuals who strongly identified as spiritual were more sceptical about Covid-19 vaccines. This association was explained by low faith in science, but not by conspiracy beliefs. Importantly, among the vaccinated participants, those who were more spiritual were more indecisive to get a Covid-19 vaccine. Using structural equation modelling (SEM), we further found that spirituality directly predicted lower likelihood of being vaccinated against Covid-19 (Study 3, N = 456). We also identified low science literacy as an additional predictor of Covid-19 scepticism, but not self-reported vaccine uptake. To conclude, spiritual beliefs are an important factor to consider when aiming to increase understanding of vaccine-related science scepticism and vaccination rejection.
View
What Are Conspiracy Theories? A Definitional Approach to Their Correlates, Consequences, and Communication
Article
Full-text available
  • Sep 2022
Conspiracy theories are abundant in social and political discourse, with serious consequences for individuals, groups, and societies. However, psychological scientists have started paying close attention to them only in the past 20 years. We review the spectacular progress that has since been made and some of the limitations of research so far, and we consider the prospects for further progress. To this end, we take a step back to analyze the defining features that make conspiracy theories different in kind from other beliefs and different in degree from each other. We consider how these features determine the adoption, consequences, and transmission of belief in conspiracy theories, even though their role as causal or moderating variables has seldom been examined. We therefore advocate for a research agenda in the study of conspiracy theories that starts—as is routine in fields such as virology and toxicology—with a robust descriptive analysis of the ontology of the entity at its center. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Psychology, Volume 74 is January 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.
View
On the Relation Between Religiosity and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories: The Role of Political Orientation
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2022
Religious and conspiracy beliefs share the feature of assuming powerful forces that determine the fate of the world. Correspondingly, they have been theorized to address similar psychological needs and to be based on similar cognitions, but there exist little authoritative answers about their relationship. We delineate two theory‐driven possibilities. If conspiracy theories and religions serve as surrogates for each other by fulfilling similar needs, the two beliefs should be negatively correlated. If conspiracy and religious beliefs stem from the same values and cognitions, this would speak for a positive correlation that might be diminished—for example—by controlling for shared political ideologies. We approached the question with a meta‐analysis (N = 10,242), partial correlations from large Christian‐dominated datasets from Germany, Poland, and the United States (N = 12,612), and a preregistered U.S. study (N = 500). The results indicate that the correlations between religiosity and conspiracy theory endorsement were positive, and political orientation shared large parts of this covariance. Correlations of religiosity with the more need‐related conspiracy mentality differed between countries. We conclude that similarities in the explanatory style and ideologies seem to be central for the relation between intrinsic religiosity and endorsing conspiracy theories, but psychological needs only play a minor role.
View
The Usual Suspects: How psychological motives and thinking styles predict the endorsement of well‐known and COVID‐19 conspiracy beliefs
Article
Full-text available
  • May 2021
Research on belief in conspiracy theories identified many predictors but often failed to investigate them together. In the present study, we tested how the most important predictors of beliefs in conspiracy theories explain endorsing COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 conspiracy theories and conspiracy mentality. Apart from these three measures of conspiratorial thinking, participants (N = 354) completed several measures of epistemic, existential, and social psychological motives, as well as cognitive processing variables. While many predictors had significant correlations, only three consistently explained conspiratorial beliefs when included in one model: higher spirituality (specifically eco-awareness factor), higher narcissism, and lower analytical thinking. Compared to the other two conspiratorial measures, predictors less explained belief in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, but this depended on items’ content. We conclude that the same predictors apply to belief in both COVID and non-COVID conspiracies and identify New Age spirituality as an important contributor to such beliefs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
View
Science Skepticism Across 24 Countries
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2021
Efforts to understand and remedy the rejection of science are impeded by lack of insight into how it varies in degree and in kind around the world. The current work investigates science skepticism in 24 countries ( N = 5,973). Results show that while some countries stand out as generally high or low in skepticism, predictors of science skepticism are relatively similar across countries. One notable effect was consistent across countries though stronger in Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) nations: General faith in science was predicted by spirituality, suggesting that it, more than religiosity, may be the ‘enemy’ of science acceptance. Climate change skepticism was mainly associated with political conservatism especially in North America. Other findings were observed across WEIRD and non-WEIRD nations: Vaccine skepticism was associated with spirituality and scientific literacy, genetic modification skepticism with scientific literacy, and evolution skepticism with religious orthodoxy. Levels of science skepticism are heterogeneous across countries, but predictors of science skepticism are heterogeneous across domains.
View
Revised and short versions of the pseudoscientific belief scale
Article
Full-text available
  • Feb 2021
  • APPL COGNITIVE PSYCH
In this article, we develop the revised and short versions of the pseudoscientific belief scale through two empirical studies (N = 4154). This revision is motivated by the excessive length of the scale, as well as by consistent observations of poor item loadings across several studies. Exploratory factor analysis in Study 1 revealed 11 dispensable items, resulting in a 19‐item revised form, whereas in Study 2 we constructed a short eight‐item form. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed unidimensional factor structures for both scales, exhibiting excellent psychometric properties in relation to factor structure, item loadings, internal consistency and convergent validity with paranormal beliefs, conspiracy theories and need for uniqueness. Whereas the original scale provides reliable indices, we encourage the use of these improved versions to measure pseudoscientific beliefs in the context of socio‐psychological studies.
View
Experimenting with Religion: The New Science of Belief
Book
  • Mar 2023
Whatever else it might be, religion is a human psychological phenomenon, and psychologists have been interested in it since the beginning of the discipline. In recent decades, psychologists have been pushing back against naysayers who assert that religion simply cannot be studied scientifically, cannot be brought into a lab and quantified. They have been figuring out ways to measure various aspects of religiosity, and to rigorously test theories about why people hold the beliefs that they do about gods, souls, and rituals. They have been experimenting with religion. Experimenting with Religion brings the reader behind the scenes, into the labs where scientists have been working to understand religion. This book describes a series of experiments, puts them in their intellectual context, and interviews the scientists themselves, asking them about where their ideas come from and how these turn into actual experimental data to be interpreted. Each chapter covers a related series of studies, with topics ranging from what children believe about the afterlife to how people assess the effectiveness of spells and charms. Written in the aftermath of the replication crisis in psychology, this book is also a meditation on psychological science itself, and whether and how it can help us understand anything at all, let alone religion.
View
View
Disentangling the effects of religiosity and spirituality on contaminated mindware.
Preprint
  • Nov 2022
Objective: Religiosity and spirituality are central to people's lives and shape their worldviews and cognitions. Based upon existing knowledge, we suggest that their influence increases susceptibility to accumulating evaluation-disabling beliefs known as contaminated mindware (i.e., pseudoscience, conspiracy, and paranormal beliefs), which may lead to undesirable outcomes. The current study aims to explore this relationship further and separate the effects of religiosity and spirituality on accumulating contaminated mindware in different domains. Methods: Relationships between religiosity, spirituality and paranormal, conspiracy, and pseudoscience beliefs were tested on a Polish sample (N = 651). SEM analysis was used in order to control for shared effects of religiosity and spirituality. Results: Religiosity was associated with greater rates of paranormal and conspiracy beliefs. Spirituality was also associated with increased rates of paranormal beliefs; this relationship was stronger than in the case of religiosity. Furthermore, spirituality was also associated with increased rates of pseudoscience beliefs. Discussion: Conducted study highlights the importance of simultaneously considering the effects of religiosity and spirituality on the development of contaminated mindware. We show that both religiosity and spirituality are connected to paranormal beliefs in partially unique ways. The stronger relationship between spirituality and paranormal beliefs than religiosity and paranormal beliefs is in line with bounded affinity theory. We also show that previously studied associations between religiosity and pseudoscience beliefs and spirituality and conspiracy beliefs may have been caused by the confounding with each other.
View
Different paths to COVID-19’s conspiratorial beliefs for the religious and spiritual: The roles of analytic and open-minded thinking
Preprint
  • Nov 2022
With the threat of COVID-19, conspiratorial beliefs have proliferated, and people’s religiosity has risen. However, religiosity may only capture a narrow range of people’s meta-physical beliefs, spirituality may capture other aspects, and both of which may be associated with conspiratorial beliefs differently. To better understand the distinction between these traits, in a community sample of 662 Poles, we examined the correlations between them and misperceptions about COVID-19 (i.e., conspiracy and false factual beliefs) and the mediating role of analytic thinking and a tendency to be open-minded about evidence. Religiosity and spirituality were associated with misperceptions—directly and indirectly—but the associations were positive in the former and negative in the latter. The research points to the importance of studying both religiosity and spirituality in the context of cognition and misperceptions.
View