Presentation: Does Analytical Style Promote Irreligion?

Administrator
January 1, 2015

Cognitive Styles and Religious Attitudes Presentations

Research Associate Catherine Caldwell-Harris
Annual Meeting of the Psychonomics Society, Chicago IL USA
2015

Abstract: AYŞE AYÇIÇEĞIDINN and SEVIL HOCAOĞLU, Istanbul University, CATHERINE CALDWELL-HARRIS, Boston University (presented by Catherine Caldwell-Harris). — Having an analytical cognitive style is correlated with reduced religiosity, possibly because analysis prompts individuals to scrutinize beliefs that conflict with scientific naturalism. We tested the constraining environments hypothesis: Cognitive/personality styles have less influence when sociocultural norms constrain what beliefs are acceptable. Among female Turkish university students residing in Istanbul, cognitive style had minimal association with religiosity. However, the correlation was of similar magnitude to western samples among males, and among English-Turkish bilinguals. Turkish males face less stigma when they move away from religion than do females. The bilingual students may have acquired individualist ideologies via English exposure in their teen years, and may have experienced freedom from their family to pursue their own educational goals (i.e, invest in English study). Observed correlations between cognitive styles and religiosity might reflect a third variable: individualism (as a cultural value and personality trait) could separately promote analytical style and reduced religiosity.

Learn More about the Conference Here

Share on Facebook

Share on Twitter

Follow our blog

Tags

# Catherine Caldwell-Harris

Sign up for the CMAC newsletter and be the first to know about new publications, project activity, and upcoming events.

By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: Business Name. You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Wildman

CMAC’s approach is innovative, it’s risky and ultimately it might not work. But this approach does promise breakthrough change, allowing us to test before we invest in new interventions. We use these techniques routinely when we design cars, bridges and factories. And speaking for myself, a change skeptic, I finally feel I’m telling myself the truth about real-world change. I’ll keep up the rhythm of small-change activities. And I’ll make a very precise, limited and deliberate move on the big-change stage through CMAC.

Wesley Wildman
Executive Director

Teehan

After two (intense) days with the people at CMAC, going through the process of translating my hypothesis about religion and empathy into the language of computer modeling, it all began to make sense … Because of this method, we will actually be able to bring some data into a debate that would otherwise remain largely in speculation … It forced me to formulate my ideas in such precise and concrete terms (so they could be coded for) that I came away with a better understanding of my own theory.

John Teehan, Ph.D.
Hofstra University

Bacon

CMAC is a great environment when you are in a transitional stage of your early career and deciding what type of career path to pursue. There is such a wide variety of projects going on at one time, and even if you are assigned to primarily work on just one, there is frequently the opportunity to contribute to multiple projects. And in doing so, you get to use your skillset in areas outside your area of expertise, and also expand your skillset within your main area with an interdisciplinary team.

Rachel Bacon
Postdoctoral Fellow

Gore

Each member of the team was capable of synthesizing that multi-disciplinary knowledge into a single response to a complex problem statement. The realization was humbling and reshaped my view of what interdisciplinary work can be and how I pursue it.

Ross Gore, Ph.D.
Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center