May 10 2012
Analytic Thought and Religious Belief
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@Steven Novella
‘What I really want to know is – how can we get people to shift their balance of thought style to be more analytic, at least in the appropriate situations.’
Make ‘Critical Thinking’ a mandatory subject in schools? Though this will not be implemented because it will be detrimental to authority.
@Dirk Steele
I don’t know where you’re based but in the UK things are moving in a positive direction. For example, in history the old way was for students to simply cite sources, now they are also marked on their assessment of the quality/reliability of the sources.
I doubt that the lack of critical thinking education is down to an intentional policy to oppress the proles, it’s more likely a flaw in the ideology of education. Traditionally education was about learning rather than thinking.
@Steven Novella
Thanks, always good to have a critique of a study that appeals to my prejudices
Very interesting, thank you for your insights. I love psychology, Steven Pinker is one of my intellectual heroes. It would be great if you could do an interview with Steven Pinker on the SGU podcast. Steven Pinker is one of the founding fathers of evolutionary psychology, psychology rapidly became a branch of evolutionary biology after Steven Pinker and other great thinkers integrated it with neurophysiology, sensory physiology and other areas of biology. Psychology is a real branch of Science unlike Economics.
By the way Dr.Novella, have you seen the American sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond? You look like an older version of one of the characters in it. lol
On my first pass through this post, I quickly (and intuitively) answered those three questions near the top, without much conscious effort. Sure enough, I got each one wrong, but after I looked up the answers and reflected a bit on why I was wrong, my mistakes became obvious.
This experience is analogous to my experience of moving away from religious belief towards religious skepticism – the main difference being the scale – in terms of the number of problems that I faced and how long it took me to improve my responses to them.
Yet, if I take this study too seriously or simplistically, then I might be drawn towards the conclusion that I’m the same person today that I was back when I was religious, which seems absurd to me.
On the other hand, perhaps I basically am the same person today that I was then, only I make more of an effort nowadays to expose myself to analytical thinkers, who regularly challenge my intuitions and thereby “set me straight.” If so, then I suppose that I can live with that.
@milkybar251
‘I don’t know where you’re based but in the UK things are moving in a positive direction.’
I am based in the UK and have a friend who has been attempting to introduce critical thinking courses at AS level in a local college. It has been a big effort but partly successful, so progress is being made.
‘it’s more likely a flaw in the ideology of education.’
Or it may be part of the ideology. What is the role of education within society? Are you familiar with views of Sir Kenneth Robinson. You can find some of his talks easily with a quick google search. They are also entertaining.
Since I was primed not to take my first thought as correct, I got them all right. But without the knowledge that they were trick questions, I doubt if I would have. Of course, as a non-student, the only way such questions would come into my sphere would be as some sort of trick question, so I would have spent time on them had a friend handed them to me as well.
Which means I analyzed the situation of my friend handing me a quiz and recognized the necessity to be aware of tricks. Had I been part of a psychology experiment, I would also have been hyper aware of the types of questions I was being handed as well, because I recognize that this was an odd situation.
As Steven says – there are lots of factors that could influence such a test.
Another point is that whenever I am handed a personality questionnaire, I become frustrated by the simplicity of my options and the complexity of the answer. Or the fact that my answer, while perhaps simple, just isn’t one of the options. So ultimately those questionnaires are not actually getting my true opinion. They are getting an approximation. Sometimes its not all that close an approximation.
My opinion
This is an intriguing study, but ultimately I am not convinced that it gives us any useful insight. Except insight into skeptic’s biases about how believers think.
This is interesting:
“It’s a shocking fact, but pretty much everything we think we know about human behaviour derives from studies of US undergraduates – the psychologists’ ‘lab rat’! These people are WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) in more ways than one.
“A paper from three psychologists at the University of British Columbia lays out in stark detail just how unusual the WEIRDs are, at least from a global perspective.”: http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/09/how-normal-is-weird.html
that bat and ball one threw me off when I recently read Daniel Kahneman’s book “thinking fast and slow”…..its amazing how we automatically can do this sort of stuff….the first time I ever saw the pond question, I got it right though
@tyler the new ager
Interesting article. I am european myself, having lived in the UK, France and Italy. When I go to the US, I am often amazed about the cultural differences. Even in language, English english is very different to US english and I find myself very often in positions where I have to explain myself more fully…..and carefully. This generally occurs with those in a position of authority… border control, security guards, police and psychiatrists etc. Fundamental Christianity has no place here in Europe. Obviously the US at the moment is attempting to extend it’s empire across the world and does not understand attempts by us heathens to resist it. After all… they all live in the ‘greatest’ country in the world… why do we not want to be just like them?
@DS
Yes I agree with you fully. When I travel in Europe I never need a passport, no one checks my bag and everyone is accepting of me. Historically the British empire was much more benevolent. I mean the British empire was much more forgiving and accepting of other cultures. Obviously Indians(and I do not mean native americans) speak and write English because they had a burning desire to learn more about their benevolent conquerors.
Europe as a whole is hotbed of kind compassion and acceptance. Latin is persuasive throughout Europe because Rome(Empire) and the church simply presented their logical views about religion and government and everyone jumped on board. I find many cases of European cultures that begrudgingly extended their “Help” to other non-European cultures. Obviously the US is the first Western culture to exclusionary, isolationist, and arrogant. You are also right I do not see christian fundamentalism in the British isles. I mean there has not been an IRA bombing in a couple of years now.
Everyone likes to think that we are new and different,but historically we are primates that have a pattern. So please stop the European elitism because right now our culture is an easy target.
@tyler the newager
Its an interesting article, and I didn’t know about the uniformity of the subjects in these kinds of studies. But surely even the conclusions that are being drawn from comparing the WEIRDS to
non-WEIRDS are biased.
They all seem to draw conclusions they want to see, when surely there are so many other conclusions that could be drawn by the time you consider how many assumptions went into basis of the conclusions.
I don’t know how anyone could study human behavior with any real scientific rigor. Or at least not ethically.
@locutusbrg
‘Obviously the US is the first Western culture to exclusionary, isolationist, and arrogant.’
No. Obviously us Brits beat you to it. And what have the Romans ever done for us??
@SARA
‘I don’t know how anyone could study human behavior with any real scientific rigor. Or at least not ethically.’
Are you a Szaszian mental illness ‘denialist’ like me? Or do you think like Dr Novella that you can read minds?
@locutusbrg
‘because right now our culture is an easy target.’
There is a valid reason for this. In the 19th Century, Britain was the dominant economic culture. It could export its culture as well as its goods. In the 20th Century the US was dominant in the same way. In the 21st Century the US is bankrupt. War is now your only method to attempt to remain dominant. You may succeed. I hope not.
@DS
Let me be clear we are not just warlike now we always have been, Native americans, mexicans, even Canada right from the start war has always been an answer in the US. My point is no one is different all humans use violence. The less evolved ones use quickly and brutally. The Social Democracies currently dominating the world for the most part use less. You can always point at specific things and say this is the problem now. I like the perspective that current world leadership is slightly more benign than previous era’s. TO try to say England is better, China is better, UK is better is primitive tribalism and fear( better identified as Nationalism). That is the problem. You want me to say it ok. The US sucks, so does the Brit government, italy, china, Argentina, Luxembourg. Doesn’t change the fact that we suck less now than we did 100 years ago, and hopefully less than we will in 100 years.
@DirkSteele
No, I don’t deny mental illness. I am too deep in the midst of major depression to consider the possibility that mental illness doesn’t exist. As a result, it is probable that I am biased. Nothing you have mentioned to date has even tempted me think otherwise.
I find your trolling to be more detrimental to your cause than otherwise. You have all the earmarks of extreme belief and none of the honest self analysis that I consider the hallmark of critical thinking.
@locutusbrg
‘To try to say England is better,’
I have never said that. I have only stated that we are different. I am fully awareof my British shame because of my ancestors behaviour in the past. That we have been genocidal in India and Africa. It is the accident of my birthplace and not my choice. . And, as George Orwell has explained… those that control the present control the past… and etc etc etc.. The US, as all empires do as they are failing.. are attempting this.
I agree with SARA. Priming people with “this may be a trick question” is probably the way to go before then trying to explain the holy trinity. Or why homeopathy can cure things by watering down a similar causal agent but doesn’t have unexpected consequences when we filter poisons out with our water treatment facilities.
Anyway, the most important thing to take away from this paper is that I got all 3 questions right
America is not “good” at wars. They have cost them far more than they gained.
American dominance is more related to its trading and currency position due to WW2 and its early resources as an untouched continent… and the fact that half of Europe was missing after the end of WW2 and in dire need of funding and assistance, at very reasonable rates of course. It seems we don’t wage war to dominate, we wage war to improve our shopping experience.
The soldiers are really just to make sure America “gets a good deal”
@SARA
‘You have all the earmarks of extreme belief and none of the honest self analysis that I consider the hallmark of critical thinking.’
You need to re-examine your ear marks, metaphorically speaking. Are your hallmarks silver or gold or fake? How do you tell? I know that the scientific method is the only method that allows us to predict the future with any certainty. What method do you use?
Does the paper demonstrate how well did they control for mathematical education and ability? These questions are trivial to people with a certain amount of familiarity and facility with various basic mathematical concepts (like simple algebraic manipulation and exponential growth), and this seems to depend on most people not looking at the question carefully, or for their intuitive answer to not match up to the correct answer.
@eiskrystal
‘America is not “good” at wars. They have cost them far more than they gained.’
I agree. But it has never stopped you trying… again and again.
@eiskrystal
‘America is not “good” at wars. They have cost them far more than they gained.’
I agree. But it has never stopped you trying… again and again. Vietnam, Korea, El salvador, Iraq, Afganistan, North Korea, and Iran. You are gonna try China next… mainly because your trillions of debt are owed to whom? You are owned by them. Ha!
So you just redouble your efforts! If at first you do not succeed…. bla bla bla.
This is religious thinking that has nothing to do with science. You need war because you have lost the rational argument.
You Americans have been conditioned into your views just as much as you can see the North Koreans express their grief over the death of their leader as being strange. You just cannot see it. You have been manipulated. I as a Brit and a European can see this in the same way that I cannot see my own conditioning. Unless I look very very closely. I have to be an alien within my own culture. Tricky eh?
@Dirk Steele
‘I have to be an alien within my own culture.’
Then you will be defined as being schizophrenic or having some kind of mental ‘disorder’. It is well known that immigrants are ten times likely to be designated as having a mental disease. Why is that I wonder…. Can you explain why?
I assume that by “predicting the future” you mean that science predicts the specific outcome of a defined set of parameters in certain situations.
I don’t quite understand how that relates to my point that your sniping and trolling are generally non-conducive to making anyone take you seriously. Nor does it relate to how your arguments and references to inapt studies show any clarity in your thinking.
In fact, if anything, your occupation of the comments for the last several weeks has only provided evidence of your lack of ability in that area.
US politics? The rest of the world can see this is a joke. A grevious falsehood with the waving of all the pre printed banners and the primates chanting in unison. I can see there is no difference between the film ‘Triumph of the Will ‘ (google it and watch) with the latest democratic or republican convention. You lot are dangerous.
@SARA
‘I don’t quite understand’
Because you cannot be bothered? Or because you lack the necessary intellect?
@SARA
Rhetorical question. I know your answer before you even open your lips and begin to type…
@SARA
Do you see yourself how you would like to see yourself… or do you see yourself as others see you.. in this case the rest of the world? Is there a difference even? What do you think?
@SARA
‘your sniping and trolling’
Those are your definitions used in order to dismiss my views. Give me the scientific evidence or shut up.
OK. My whisky intake has exceeded my intellectual capability. I look forward to reading your comments in the morning though….
It would be interesting to run an ad campaign (anywhere they put ads) that did nothing more than present problems like the ones at the beginning of this article, with no incentive to answer them (aside from curiosity.)
And then maybe have a website you could check your answer on.
I wonder how such a thing would affect people. Would they start to ignore it? Would they look forward to new problems? Could it promote analytically thinking elsewhere, or would it just be a drop in the bucket?
@SARA
‘your sniping and trolling are generally non-conducive to making anyone take you seriously’
I am an old guy. I have long since tried to fight madness with reason. It don’t work. It produces zilch.
Nowadays I fight madness with madness. (I am probably failing again too… but at least I am trying my best.)
PharmD28: “that bat and ball one threw me off when I recently read Daniel Kahneman’s book “thinking fast and slow”…..its amazing how we automatically can do this sort of stuff….the first time I ever saw the pond question, I got it right though”
Same here. I really struggled with the bat and ball, but found the pond relatively easy.
I got the Widget one wrong. Grrrr.
@Dirk Steele
‘OK. My whisky intake has exceeded my intellectual capability.’
It does not make you shut up though does it? In fact it does the opposite. But if you want to make a fool of yourself again… well.. I can’t stop you.
@Dr Novella
Dirk Steele on 10 May 2012 at 4:55 pm
@Dirk Steele
‘OK. My whisky intake has exceeded my intellectual capability.’
It does not make you shut up though does it? In fact it does the opposite. But if you want to make a fool of yourself again… well.. I can’t stop you.
This is an example of when the brain does not equal the mind.
The results of this study are unconvincing due to evidence of selective reporting or other biases resulting in an excess of significant findings. It’s the exact same problem as in the Balcetis and Dunning (2010) paper on “wishful seeing” that you blogged about here.
I ran the same test on the Gervais (2012) paper that Gregory Francis ran on Balectis and Dunning (2010), and found even greater evidence of bias in Gervais (2012) than Francis found in Balcetis and Dunning (2012).
You can find my analysis here
Jay
The link to my analysis didn’t work. Let’s try again.
You can find my analysis here.
Jay
@jt512
‘The results of this study are unconvincing due to evidence of selective reporting or other biases ‘
Welcome to the world of psychiatry.
@Dirk, I don’t know about psychiatry, but my distinct impression is that publication bias selective reporting and other statistical biases are pervasive in experimental psychology.
@jt512
‘that publication bias selective reporting and other statistical biases are pervasive in experimental psychology.’
Not just psychology, I thought to myself, from my Dissociated Dissonanced mind disordered perspective (DSM6) – but even in science ..
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7915-most-scientific-papers-are-probably-wrong.html
but I may be wrong in my thinking.
I have come to the somewhat enlightening and yet baffling conclusion that i no longer support the concept of ‘free range’ products… Why would i want to eat a happy chicken??? That’s like destroying the hopes and dreams of a healthy happy chicken who has so much to live for!! Yet somehow a battery chicken that is on the verge of suicide is a no go?? This logic is mind blowing.
I say let the chickens make their own decision…
@Dirk,
That paper by Iaonnidis claiming that most published research is false got a lot of press. Its refutation not so much.
Discus thrower? I don’t think The Thinker has anything to do with throwing a discus.
@jt512 – Very cool analysis. Thanks for posting it. I also wonder whether they performed but didn’t report experiments. Only reported the results that supported one side. I am skeptical that looking at The Thinker induces analytic thinking.
I find these kinds of experiments less than impressive simply because they seem to just randomly smoosh two or more things together, and then see what happens. There’s no… hypothesis.
Let’s count how many cupcakes people eat when the room is painted green, and compare it to how many they eat when the room is painted orange.
Let’s observe how many people say they are Democrats when indoors, and compare it to when they are outdoors.
Of course, any curiosity is better than none, but I would much rather see an experimental model which predicts an outcome, develops a test which accounts for variables to the extent possible, then runs the experiment to see if the hypothesis is supported.
.
I agree jt512, I was thinking the exact same thing.
If you look at the first study each correlation is exceedingly weak all r<.25. Moreover, the follow up study suggests bias. The first of four experiments has a nice effect size of 0.6, but you can see what looks like regression to the mean over the next three analyses, as the effect size decreases to 0.44, 0.36 and 0.31. The strange thing about those four studies? All have a p-value of between 0.05 and 0.01. Wow, they really planned those studies out well… Except, you can also see the sample size increasing for each subsequent study (total n=57, n=93, n=145, n=179).
Now, there is a potential explanation for this effect, as it is clear the authors are trying to reduce the strength of the effect with each subsequent experiment. Moreover, as they run pilot experiments before each task, it is possible that they planned out the total number of participants for each task before looking at any results. But it just seems a little fishy that they would have gotten a bunch of p-values all around 0.02. I suspect they collected additional samples after first looking at their results.
The researchers have developed their study from an analytical perspective. But one of the variables in the study is this very perspective. By then setting up religious belief as the other variable, are they not confirming a bias inherent in their hypothesis?
‘how can we get people to shift their balance of thought style to be more analytic, at least in the appropriate situations.’
How about writing an SGU eBook on logical fallacies?
It needn’t be that long, illustrated using some entertaining examples from real-life and popular culture (sitcoms, celebs, history etc. Homer Simpson and Lisa’s tiger rock for example). Come to think of it you might be able to write one that took all its examples from the Simpsons.
The trick is to make a book like this fun-looking, approachable, and non-scary.
Dirk, i’m not American, i made changes to my text and forgot to switch the grammar. Your inebriated rantings were fairly amusing though.
America’s attitude is a human attitude, and it has had a far longer history than the piffling time that “merica” has existed.
“how can we get people to shift their balance of thought style to be more analytic, at least in the appropriate situations.”
Selective pressure?
SARA said: Since I was primed not to take my first thought as correct, I got them all right.
Yeah, in my case, I consciously ignored the priming (e.g. by rushing through), so as to test the prediction that my intuition will fail me. Sure enough, it did: in all three cases, my answer exactly matched the “intuitive answer” given in the study.
That’s not to suggest, had I allowed myself more time and/or not peeked at the correct/analytical answers, that I would have gotten all three right. But I like to think that I would have gotten at least one right.
I don’t find Dirk’s inebriated rantings to be entertaining. Rather, seem to show that he has unhealthy obsessions and an aggrandized view his own knowledge about the world; he seems to view that all Americans are the same. His injudicious use of “you” to generalize as “Americans” and to say what “you” think, do, want, etc. Somehow he think he’s knows our thoughts, desires, nature, motivations; all from his desk across an ocean. Doesn’t seem to understand that we are a complex country full of hundreds of millions of individuals with complex, competing, and varied views on how & what our government should be doing in other parts of the world. Different factions within our country can’t even agree on the facts or which facts represent reality, let alone agree on courses of action. He also seems to take a position that we all somehow should be accountable or to blame for the actions of our predecessors. He also seems to take unfair and unthoughtful jabs at people. With regard to the actions that our government ends up taking in different parts of the world, it ends up being a result of a complicated set of compromises, nudged along by the current consensus, but only so much as is allowed by institutional momentum that had already put things in place. A large ship turns very slowly. Furthermore, his rantings are way off-topic.
“Your inebriated rantings were fairly amusing though. ”
“I don’t find Dirk’s inebriated rantings to be entertaining.’
I wasn’t amused either.
And I think they were not amusing for SARA at whose expense the rantings were made, and who had just indicated that she is suffering from major depression.
A little empathy wouldn’t have cost a lot.
A sociopath recommending empathy? Will wonders never cease.
@Billyjoe7
‘And I think they were not amusing for SARA at whose expense the rantings were made,’
I am sorry and was not aware Sara has MDD. My response to her resulted from her initial insult to me.
‘your sniping and trolling are generally non-conducive to making anyone take you seriously’
I have not seen much evidence of you holding back in your ‘discussions’ with cwfong on every thread when insults have been proffered. Pot. Kettle. Black.
@etatro
‘Doesn’t seem to understand that we are a complex country full of hundreds of millions of individuals with complex, competing, and varied views on how & what our government should be doing in other parts of the world.’
Like the US views Iraq, Afganistan, and Iran then? I have spent enough time in the US to understand the complexity. I have also spoken disparagingly about the Great British empire also, but it is well known that Americans do not get ‘irony’.
I take no prisoners unlike the US –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_military_bases_in_the_world.svg
You say ‘With regard to the actions that our government ends up taking in different parts of the world, it ends up being a result of a complicated set of compromises, nudged along by the current consensus,’
and this is not how the world views you. I merely provided the stereotype as seen by many other countries. Of course, I am a Brit and therefore a jolly nice chap! Cheerio!
Dirk, BillyJoe7 is a concrete thinker. Insults are the closest to abstractions that he can get.
There are no simple solutions to the problem of concrete thinking. Indeed, many intelligent and successful adults would probably be classified as concrete thinkers in many areas of functioning. Despite their intelligence and many abilities, the likelihood that they could be trained to be theoretical physicists or philosophers is not large.
There are no known “exercises” in abstract thinking that have the effect of turning a concrete thinker into an abstract thinker across domains of content. Sometimes practice with “brain teasers” or math and logic problems is attempted (as suggested in this post) as a means to facilitate more abstract thinking. However, there is no evidence that practice of this sort enhances abstract thinking in a generalizable way. That is, a person can improve performance with brain teasers, math problems, and logic problems with no transfer to other domains of thinking.
@ Steven Novella
> What I really want to know is – how can we get people to shift their balance of thought style to be more analytic, at least in the appropriate situations. <
It cuts both ways. How can we get people to shift their balance of thought style to be more INTUIVE, at least in the appropriate situations?
I didn’t find it difficult to see some problems with this study.
“Scientific interest in the cognitive underpinnings of religious belief has grown in recent years…”
Why is science interested in the “…cognitive underpinnings of religious belief…”?
I can save science some time. The “cognitive underpinnings” are: human thought (people who believe in God enjoy the same cognition as atheists — in case anyone reading this didn’t know)
“However, to date, little experimental research has focused on the cognitive processes that may
promote religious disbelief.”
Then why doesn’t science study that? Test the “analytical thinking” of atheists. Then put some believers through the same test. Bet you get the same percentages (if all other variables are the same). How’s that for an hypothesis? (and, hey, why does “science” want to learn about the “…cognitive processes that may promote religious disbelief.”? Is “science” hoping to promote some religious disbelief? And we wonder why there’s a growing distrust of science… )
“The present studies apply a dual-process model of cognitive processing to this problem, testing the hypothesis that analytic processing promotes religious disbelief.”
Hmm, let me guess – since we associate analytical thinking with intelligence, it only makes sense that analytical thinking would promote religious disbelief because atheists are smarter than believers, right?
“Individual differences in the tendency to analytically override initially flawed intuitions in
reasoning were associated with increased religious disbelief.”
Ignorant bigotry.
This research is a thinly-veiled attempt to cast religious people as dummies.
And it shows a profound ignorance of religion and belief in God. As long as atheists think that “religious” people simply give prayers of supplication and petition to an old man on a throne in the sky, they will continue to scratch their heads and wonder how to “convert” them to rationality.
(PS – to some Christians “religious” means dedicated to ritual and the appearance of piety, while feeling no love of or for Christ in your heart.)
Analytical thinking in any particular situation depends on prior education/experience, and the time available to dedicate to the thinking. If you want more analytical thinkers in the population, improve public education. While this may well decrease the number of “believers”, it won’t be due to improved analytical thinking skills. But either way, if you want to promote atheism, that’s the way I think you should go: improve education. It’ll be difficult to do because there are a lot of crazy conservative Christians fighting against education right now. Why? because they associate it with the “liberal elite” – the scientists who think they’re stupid! Ironic, eh?
There’s a frightening aspect to this sort of study. That science would still condone research that segregates a subgroup of the population to examine it’s “differences” is reprehensible.
What Mlema said!
Dr. Novella expressed skepticism. Few “skeptics” in the “movement” would recognize their cognitive bias. When skepticism is tainted by ideologies from other “isms” and politics, you get a “movement”. Promoting critical-thinking is really a euphemism for opposing outsiders who haven’t been indoctrinated to believe that science and religion are always in opposition. Always have been. Always will be.
Ask RW about how Gallileo was executed by stupid Christians.