Religious versus reflective priming and susceptibility to the conjunction fallacy

Abstract

SummaryThe effect of religious priming has been studied in relation to a number of variables, most extensively with prosocial behavior. The effects of priming on cognitive domains, however, are relatively understudied. The present study examined the effects of religious priming, compared with reflective and neutral priming, on the conjunction fallacy. Participants were randomly assigned to 1 of the 3 priming conditions. Priming was presented through the scrambled sentence task in which participants were required to rearrange words of a religious (e.g., pray), reflective (e.g., reason), or neutral (e.g., paper) content. The conjunction fallacy was measured by a task containing 1 problem. Results indicated that those undergoing the religious prime were significantly more likely to commit the conjunction fallacy compared with those in the reflective priming group. Situations in which reasoning is integral may benefit from knowing the immediate effects of religious versus reflective stimuli in the environment.