Why are some people more religious than others? Answers to this question often focus on the role of culture or upbringing. Although these influences are important, new research suggests that whether we believe or not may also have to do with how much we rely on intuition versus analytic thinking. In 2011 researchers from Harvard University published a paper showing that people who have a tendency to rely on their intuition are more likely to believe in God. They also showed that encouraging people to think intuitively increased people's belief in God.

Building on these results in an article published in Science recently, Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan of the University of British Columbia found that encouraging people to think analytically reduced their tendency to believe in God. Taken together, these findings suggest belief may stem at least in part from our thinking styles.

Gervais and Norenzayan's research is based on the idea that we possess two different ways of thinking that are related. Understanding these two ways, which are often referred to as system 1 and system 2, may be important for understanding our tendency toward having religious faith. System 1 thinking relies on shortcuts and rules of thumb, whereas system 2 relies on analytic thinking and tends to be slower and to require more effort. Solving logical and analytic problems may require that we override our system 1 thinking processes to engage system 2. Psychologists have developed a number of clever techniques that spur us to do this. Using some of these techniques, Gervais and Norenzayan examined whether engaging system 2 leads people away from believing in God and religion.

In one activity, Gervais and Norenzayan gave participants sets of five randomly arranged words (such as “high winds the flies plane”) and asked them to drop one word and rearrange the others to construct a more meaningful sentence (such as “the plane flies high”). Those participants who unscrambled sentences that contained words related to analytical thinking (such as “reason” or “ponder”) were less likely to express agreement with the statement that God exists. People's prior belief in whether God exists, as measured several weeks before the study took place, was found to be unrelated to the results.

In another experiment, the investigators used an even more subtle way of activating analytic thinking: by having participants fill out a survey measuring their religious beliefs that was printed either in a clear font or in one that was difficult to read. Prior research has shown that a difficult-to-read font promotes analytic thinking by forcing volunteers to slow down and deliberate more carefully about the meaning of what they are reading. The researchers found that participants who completed a survey that was printed in an unclear font expressed less belief as compared with those who filled out the same survey in the clear font.

These studies demonstrate yet another way in which our thinking tendencies, many of which may be innate, have contributed to religious faith. It may also help explain why the vast majority of Americans tend to believe in God. Because system 2 thinking requires effort, most of us tend to rely on our system 1 thinking processes whenever possible.

COMMENT AT ScientificAmerican.com/jul2012

19 Comments

1. 1. Sylvie Degiez 11:48 PM 6/19/12

   To give relevancy to such study and to come to the conclusion proposed by the author, one would have to come up with a coherent definition for what "to believe in god" means as it may mean a variety of things for various people. Also the definition of intuitive thinking is unclear. Research in the field of intuitive thinking suggest it is a wholesome non-conscious process that engage the memory, input from the senses and general assessment of a situation into one integrated response, faster and sometimes better at evaluating an overall situation then analytical thinking would do, requiring more time. Alas it can be easily disturbed by the power of suggestion or social pressure and is not always reliable. Suggesting that analytical thinking leads to lack of faith is more propaganda then science. Some people such as artists train their intuitive thinking, which takes great effort in developing. Analytical thinking has it's value and everyone wishes for some but intuitive thinking is also a skilled activity of the entire brain and requires practice. Intuitive thinking is something everyone has but few practice because it truly requires effort, there is no promotion for that sort of brain activity for the exception of the practice of the arts.
   In conclusion, in this article the study seem to have confused intuitive thinking with random or coerced thinking and gives no definition for what "believe in god" means. To conclude: believers fear not being proven less intelligent then non-believer!
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. chicken63 02:51 PM 6/20/12

   Maybe it's not God that we lose our faith in, maybe it's religion. To me, the two are mutually exclusive.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. Kirkman Dixon 10:20 AM 6/21/12

   Sylvie and Chicken make good points, though those who are "religious" church-goers typically believe in a higher power. Or they just can't resist those pot-luck dinners. One element missing in the analysis is SKEPTICISM; the true analytical skeptic neither believes nor rejects the existence of God, for neither condition can be proved. The more intuitive person might hedge his bets. BKD.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

4. 4. iii333iii 12:22 PM 6/21/12

   Perhaps Gervais and Norenzayan should not have limited their research on thinking to just 2 systems but expanded to a 3rd system of even deeper thinking. There is a growing number of scientist and theologians who think even deeper and their conclusion is, not only that God exist, but science and theology can and do coexist together. With deeper thinking and logic they fit together like "glove and hand" and that is the real reality. For the skeptics I have included a list of just some of these 3rd level thinkers.
   Dr. Hugh Ross
   Dr. Antony Flew
   Dr. Gerald Schroeder
   Dr. Frank Tipler
   Dr. Fazale Rana
   Dr. Jeff Zweerink

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

5. 5. ironmike 04:21 PM 6/21/12

   Let’s see ...People who are more intuitive than rational more readily reach the intuition based conclusion that God exists while people who are more rational than intuitive don’t rationally reach a conclusion that can’t be reached by reason. The next thing you know, research will support the hypothesis that taller people can reach thing on higher shelves better than short people. If we’ve learned anything since Galileo discovered the moons of Jupiter it should be how lucky we are to know how little we know.
   Mike L.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

6. 6. iamdave220 11:24 PM 6/21/12

   If critical, analytical thinkers disbelieve in God, with the implication being that thinking people must recognize that there is nothing outside of nature, how do you then explain some of the greatest thinkers in human history having unshakable beliefs in deity of some kind? Aristotle, Plato, Confucius, St Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, C.S. Lewis, J.B.S Harldane, etc., etc. This sounds like an attempt to reassure oneself in an insecure ideology.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

7. 7. RioWeber 05:33 PM 6/22/12

   I would like to add a personal insight if i may. I noticed that in the article you separate people into two assortments: (Intuition, Analytic). I find it rather similar the two words, for to be intuitive, you need to think somewhat logically. Perhaps you have herd of myers-brigs. It's a psychological way to order people into categories. Within these categories all placements share a common persona. I believe that this pretanes to your thesis. The MBTI (Myers-Brigs Type Indicator) is formed around strengths and weaknesses. Wether your stronger in one area and weaker in another. I seem to see a correlation to those who are placed as NF's (iNtuition, Feeling) in the MBTI. The NF's seem to lean far more to the side of "God believing." Vs. the NT (iNtuition, Thinking: such as my self) It seems that if you are a "T" (Thinking) then you have less faith, and a F (Feeling) has a stronger faith. The other two types are SJ (Sensing, Judging) and SP (Sensing, Perceiving) The full types consist of 4 variables, but two dominant ones. So for NF and NT it states in in the dominant ones but for SP and SJ you need to know the full type so if it was ESTJ then they would be less likely to believe but if it was ESFJ then they would be more likely to believe. Same for ESFP vs ESTP.
   
   The argument here about the Intuition vs Analitical is accurate but I believe related to the wrong instances. Wether your a Sensing or a intuition simply determines wether or not you actually think about these kinds of things (God) but if your a T vs. F determins wether you actually believe in "God."
   
   
   Thank You.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

8. 8. rnsoulen 10:58 AM 6/25/12

   As a theologian, the article “How Critical Thinkers Lose Their Faith in God” (SA, July, 2012) offends me less than it saddens me. Why, to ask Duke Divinity School professor Stanley Hauerwas’s question, do non theologians expect theologians to be fully current in their knowledge of other academic disciplines while themselves remaining complacently ignorant of contemporary theology? To suggest that critical thinking and belief in God is an oxymoron is to be woefully misinformed. Read the Handbook of Biblical Criticism, 4th edition (Soulen and Soulen; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011) that 60,000 mainly seminary students have purchased over the past thirty-six years, and then tell me that analytic thinking and “effort” is not involved in fides quaerens intellectum

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

9. 9. EdAllen 04:51 PM 7/5/12

   This article is at odds with my personal experience because, I have found that my faith in God has become stronger the more I make the effort to study. It may be that “critical thinkers” as that term is used in the article are people who just think critically about God as they perceive God, and who do not attempt to look at how God has chosen to reveal himself to the world. It is very superficial to divide people into two categories, listed as intuitive (strongly implied as uneducated) and analytic/critical (read as sophisticated, even “scientific”). If one chooses to disregard scripture without studying its content and context and instead simply “thinks critically” about God, that does not constitute exerting the effort ascribed to critical/analytical thinkers by your author. My faith, Christianity, is difficult to discard if one accepts as factually accurate that Jesus lived, ministered, said the things attributed to him, was crucified, was resurrected from the dead and appeared to his followers after his resurrection. One cannot think critically about those factual claims without investigating them, which takes real effort, not just “thinking.” Who were the witnesses? What opportunity did they have to observe what they say they observed? Are there multiple witnesses? Did the people who say they saw the resurrected Jesus act as if they had? Are there actual witnesses who dispute the testimony of Peter, Matthew, Mark, John, Paul and the rest? What did the earliest Christians write about when and by whom the Gospels were written? How and when were they accepted as authoritative by the very earliest churches scattered around the Mediterranean? Were they accepted by consensus? Are there contemporaneous secular writings? Are they consistent or inconsistent with the earliest recorded events about Jesus and the first generations of his followers? Are people with advanced academic degrees in theology “intuitive” thinkers? An interesting investigation of Christianity’s claims by a skeptical layman is reported in Lee Strobel’s book, “The Case for Christ.” I commend it as a starting point for analytical thinkers who are willing to be objective about God, and also willing to study the facts.
   
   Edward S. Allen
   Birmingham, Alabama
   

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

10. 10. iamdave220 in reply to ironmike 08:31 PM 7/5/12

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_reason

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

11. 11. Don McLeod 11:52 AM 7/6/12

    I love this article. I am an atheist because part of my brain is broken. I see my mind as separate from my brain. I try to keep my mind away from the broken part. I know now, with the help of this article, that I am forced to think slowly, and not rely on thinking system 1. The reason I am an atheist is because I had to question all the myths, nonsense and bad knowledge in the meme. The biggest source of corrupted thinking is faith. I can't just lay back and bask in God's blissful ignorance. God is not going to get me up in the morning. I need to convince my DNA, that as a collaborative monkey, I have meaning and purpose, it has to be real, that is our nature.

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

12. 12. BilliamD 09:37 AM 7/17/12

    So the implication of this article would seem to be that if we make the effort to be analytical rather than intuitive in our thinking, we will not believe in God. And yet Einstein's analytical thinking has shown us that all matter is a form of energy. What is energy? Science defines it as the ability to do work. Therefore we are all made of this "ability," this force which can neither be created nor destroyed, only changed in form. We are manifestations of it. It is our animating force, which is the definition of spirit. It seems to me that scientific analytical thinking has led us to the spiritual, not away from it!
    Bill Daley
    Buffalo, NY
    

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

13. 13. BilliamD in reply to iamdave220 09:41 AM 7/17/12

    Why must God be outside of nature? God may be nature itself.

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

14. 14. gdn 08:59 PM 7/26/12

    The sharpness (fast processing) in analytical thinking is dependent on inkling (low degree of intuition). Intuition can be enhanced, therefore your analytical thinking and your decisions will be more aligned towards your individual benefit (not necessarily in alignment with worldly parameters). The degree of Intuition (where the self become aware) is dependent on your degree of consciousness, which in turn is dependent on level of true faith you have in the Supreme lord. Intuition is like a subtle report being accessed (automatically to look after your spiritual interest and some worldly) from the Supreme Lord’s Infinite Computer.

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

15. 15. eric_harris_76 01:53 PM 8/18/12

    "It may also help explain why the vast majority of Americans tend to believe in God." In an article on critical thinking, this seems a bit off. Unless I missed it, there was nothing in the research mentioned to indicate it applied only or especially to Americans.
    
    Has anyone done similar research to explain how critical thinkers lose their faith in government?
    
    I don't see the NSF funding that one. ;-)

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

16. 16. kingpin2k2 in reply to Sylvie Degiez 12:03 PM 1/19/13

    than

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

17. 17. kingpin2k2 in reply to iamdave220 12:08 PM 1/19/13

    Just because a smart person believes in something, doesn't mean it's true. Argumentum ad populum, fail

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

18. 18. iamdave220 in reply to BilliamD 12:19 PM 1/19/13

    A creator god would have to stand outside nature, and not be explicable in terms of nature, just as a programmer stands outside of his program and is not explicable in terms of it. Perhaps some other conception of god, such as the Greek gods, could be within nature but I have trouble grasping how any god could "be" nature. I'd be interested to hear an explanation for that.

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

19. 19. iamdave220 in reply to kingpin2k2 12:26 PM 1/19/13

    You are correct, kingpin, when you say that a smart person believing in something doesn't make it true. You fail to recognize that this works both ways. Besides, whether or not it's true is not the point. The article suggests that analytical thinkers don't believe in God because belief in God is irrational. Clearly this is not true.

    Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this