Activating analytical thinking does not appear to reduce a person’s religious beliefs. This finding provides evidence against the popular idea that leaning on logic directly diminishes faith. The findings were recently published in the journal Psychology of Religion and Spirituality.
Luz Acera Martini, a doctoral fellow and doctoral candidate in psychology at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council, and Esteban Freidin, a researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council with a doctorate in philosophy, conducted the research. Both scientists are affiliated with the Universidad Nacional del Sur in Argentina. They sought to examine exactly how cognitive styles influence faith.
Previous studies in the cognitive science of religion suggested that engaging in analytical thinking could suppress the basic mental intuitions that make religious beliefs appealing. Many psychologists think that human reasoning relies on two main systems. One system is fast and intuitive, while the other is slow and analytical.
Some past experiments indicated that exposing people to tasks that prompt slow, logical thought could lower their reported religious beliefs. This concept assumes that faith relies heavily on fast intuitions. Engaging the logical brain was thought to override those religious intuitions.
However, scientists have struggled to replicate those past findings. Many follow-up experiments failed to find any effect on belief. Some studies even found that logical tasks increased religiosity.
Because the prior research yielded such mixed outcomes, Acera Martini and Freidin wanted to test the concept using more reliable methods. They aimed to determine if the past inconsistencies were due to weak experimental designs. They also wondered if the original hypothesis was simply incorrect.
“This work is part of my doctoral thesis project, where I explore the relationship between reasoning and religious beliefs from the perspective of the cognitive science of religion,” Acera Martini said. “My supervisor and I strongly value experimental research, and we noticed that the existing literature on the association between cognitive style and religious belief contained several unexplored areas.”
Acera Martini explained that the authors wanted to move beyond basic correlational observations. Correlational studies often show a negative association between analytical thinking and faith, but they do not prove that one causes the other.
“We felt these were essential for establishing clearer relationships between these variables, moving beyond the typical correlational finding: the negative association between an analytical cognitive style and religious belief,” she said. “This is particularly relevant in light of recent advances in best practices stemming from the replicability crisis in psychology and the growing emphasis on open science.”
To explore the topic, the researchers conducted two separate studies. The first study was designed to figure out which psychological tasks actually succeed at increasing analytical thinking. The authors recruited 455 Spanish-speaking university students in Argentina. They randomly assigned these students to one of three groups.
One group completed a task where they reorganized scrambled sentences containing words related to reasoning. Another group completed a debiasing training task.
In the debiasing training task, participants answered questions designed to trigger common logical fallacies, which are errors in reasoning. They then received feedback explaining the correct answer and the nature of the cognitive bias.
A third group served as a control. These participants simply described an everyday object.
After completing their assigned tasks, all participants took a cognitive reflection test. This test features math and verbal word problems that have an intuitive but incorrect answer. Getting the correct answer requires people to suppress their initial gut reaction and think deeply.
The researchers found that only the debiasing training task successfully boosted scores on the cognitive reflection test. The scrambled sentences task failed to improve analytical thinking compared to the control group.
Armed with an effective tool to stimulate logical thought, the researchers launched a second, larger study. The second study included 938 Argentinean university students from various academic disciplines.
The goal of the second study was to see if the successful analytical task would alter religious beliefs. The researchers randomly assigned the participants to either complete the debiasing training task or a control group that completed no task at all.
Next, the participants answered questionnaires measuring their religious beliefs. One questionnaire measured intuitive religious beliefs, capturing general faith and supernatural thoughts.
Another questionnaire measured contextualized religious beliefs. This scale asked participants to evaluate the likelihood that divine intervention or miracles caused certain events to happen to unknown people.
The researchers also measured several individual traits that they thought might influence the outcome. They measured the need for cognition, which is the degree to which a person enjoys engaging in effortful mental activities.
They also assessed how participants viewed the relationship between science and religion. Finally, they measured the metacognitive ambiguity of the participants’ religious beliefs, which means how certain or uncertain individuals felt about their own faith.
The scientists found no meaningful differences in religious beliefs between the group that completed the analytical thinking task and the control group. The debiasing training task did not lower self-reported religiosity on either measure of religious belief.
Statistical tests suggested that any potential difference between the groups was essentially zero. The activation of analytical thought had no noticeable impact on faith.
“Ultimately, our findings suggest that the link between how we think and what we believe is far more complex than simplistic headlines often suggest,” Acera Martini said.
“For the average person, this means that ‘thinking more analytically’ is not a magic switch that immediately or easily changes a person’s religious beliefs, at least not in the way it has often been portrayed,” she explained.
The scientists also examined whether the individual traits they measured influenced the results. For example, they hypothesized that analytical thinking might lower faith for people who view science and religion as conflicting.
On the other hand, the researchers thought that analytical thinking might increase faith for people who view science and religion as compatible. The researchers found no evidence for these ideas.
A person’s need for cognition or their views on science and religion did not change the impact of the analytical task. The degree of certainty a person had regarding their faith also failed to make a difference. The lack of an effect remained consistent across the entire sample.
“While we had some inkling of what to expect, we were still surprised by the complete absence of moderation effects,” Acera Martini said.
“In studies like this, one might typically expect a priming intervention to influence different segments of the sample in varying ways,” she noted.
“However, what truly stood out was how remarkably uniform the lack of effect was across the board,” Acera Martini explained. “This consistency was particularly unexpected given the wide variety of effects previously reported in the experimental literature.”
The findings imply that short-term interventions aimed at increasing analytical thought do not easily alter deeply held religious beliefs. This suggests that previous research claiming a direct effect might have relied on unreliable methods or statistical flukes.
The study does have a few limitations. For instance, the authors relied entirely on university students. Students tend to exhibit higher levels of analytical thinking than the general public.
Because the sample consisted of university students in Argentina, the results might look different in other cultures. The outcomes might also vary within communities that have stronger communal religious practices.
Another limitation is that the debiasing training task produced a relatively modest increase in analytical thinking. While the task proved effective, its overall impact on mental processes was small.
The researchers suggest that future studies should examine how the link between cognitive style and faith develops during childhood and adolescence. They suspect that analytical thinking might influence religious beliefs earlier in life when personal values are still forming.
“Beyond the results themselves, I believe it is essential to recognize that scientific methodologies are always evolving,” Acera Martini pointed out. “The peer-review process acts as a vital quality control that adds immense value and ensures the integrity of our work.”
Acera Martini emphasized the importance of sharing findings that fail to support popular hypotheses.
“It is also crucial to normalize the publication of null results (where no direct positive effect is found) which has become much more transparent thanks to pre-registered reports,” she said. “A null result is not a dead end; it simply shifts our focus toward new, better-defined questions.”
She expanded on what those new questions might entail. “For instance, in our study we suggest that a vital next step would be exploring these relationships in younger populations to understand how the link between reflection and belief may actually develop during earlier stages of life,” she said.
“Nevertheless, this remains an area that warrants further exploration, as there may be other relevant moderators that were not captured in this study but could be crucial for future research,” she added.
The study, “Assessing the Effect of Increased Analytic Thinking on Religious Beliefs,” was authored by Luz Acera Martini and Esteban Freidin.