On the role of analytic thinking in religious belief change: Evidence from over 50,000 participants in 16 countries

Abstract

Religious beliefs are among the most ubiquitous ideological beliefs in the world and often critical to people's worldview. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of variability in the strength and persistence of such beliefs, both across and within cultures. Here, we are interested in what underlying cognitive processes are associated with the phenomena of religious belief change. Although previous research has linked the tendency to engage in analytic thinking with religious dis-belief, this work has missed the potentially larger relationship between analytic thinking and belief change more broadly – that is change in any/either direction over time. Using a cross-sectional correlational study across two large datasets, including 16 countries and 50,827 individuals, we found that roughly 25 % of individuals indicated having substantively changing their beliefs at least once. Further, the relationship between analytic thinking and belief change appears independent from the association between analytic thinking and reported level of belief. Therefore, although analytic thinking is generally associated with a decrease in religious belief, we find some evidence that it may also support an increase in belief among those indicating past change. In total, this work provides evidence for a robust link between analytic thinking and religious belief change over time.