分析思维能降低宗教信仰

A new University of British Columbia study finds that analytic¹ thinking can decrease religious belief, even in devout²（虔诚的） believers. The study, which is published in the April 27 issue of Science, finds that thinking analytically³ increases disbelief among believers and skeptics alike, shedding important new light on the psychology⁴ of religious belief.

"Our goal was to explore the fundamental question of why people believe in a God to different degrees," says lead author Will Gervais, a PhD student in UBC's Dept. of Psychology. "A combination of complex factors influence matters of personal spirituality, and these new findings suggest that the cognitive⁵ system related to analytic thoughts is one factor that can influence disbelief." #

Researchers used problem-solving tasks and subtle experimental priming – including showing participants Rodin's sculpture The Thinker or asking participants to complete questionnaires in hard-to-read fonts – to successfully produce "analytic" thinking. The researchers, who assessed participants’ belief levels using a variety of self-reported measures, found that religious belief decreased when participants engaged in analytic tasks, compared to participants who engaged in tasks that did not involve analytic thinking. #

The findings, Gervais says, are based on a longstanding human psychology model of two distinct, but related cognitive systems to process information: an "intuitive（直觉的） " system that relies on mental shortcuts⁶ to yield fast and efficient responses, and a more "analytic" system that yields more deliberate, reasoned responses.

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"Our study builds on previous research that links religious beliefs to 'intuitive' thinking," says study co-author and Associate Prof. Ara Norenzayan, UBC Dept. of Psychology. "Our findings suggest that activating⁷ the 'analytic' cognitive system in the brain can undermine the 'intuitive' support for religious belief, at least temporarily." #

The study involved more than 650 participants in the U.S. and Canada. Gervais says future studies will explore whether the increase in religious disbelief is temporary or long-lasting, and how the findings apply to non-Western cultures.

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Recent figures suggest that the majority of the world's population believes in a God, however atheists（无神论者） and convictions（定罪，确信） are shaped by psychological and cultural factors and fluctuate across time and situations, he says. #