Browsing by Subject "ydintiedon sekaannukset"
Now showing items 1-2 of 2
-
(2019)Objectives. In Western Countries, like Finland, religiosity has simultaneously changed and declined. Respectively, nonbeliever identities have increased, but they haven’t received much research attention. Comparisons between believers and nonbelievers have been popular in the past research, and they’ve revealed differences in religious attitudes, intuitive and analytical thinking styles and ontological confusions. The aim of this research was to examine if those factors contribute to differences between groups formed based on nonbeliever identities. Believers were included to the study as a reference category. Methods. The data was collected as a part of the Uncovering the Hidden Nature of Unbelief research project. It consisted of 2112 adult Finns (age 18 to 84) who attended a survey. Religious and nonreligious identities were assessed by asking subjects to choose an option they felt most affiliated. Ontological confusions were assessed by the shortened version of the Core Knowledge Confusions scale, and thinking styles with the shortened version of Rational Experimental Inventory (REI). Two other Likert-scales were used to assess Belief to God and religious attitudes. Differences between the identity groups and factors contributing to them were analyzed by multivariate analysis of anova and discriminant analysis. Results and discussion. Most of the participants identified as atheists or agnostics. Differences between identity groups were detected in all of the factors examined: belief to god, religious attitudes, thinking styles and ontological confusions. Based on these differences, the participants were divided into four groups. A combination of belief to god, religious attitudes and intuitive thinking style formed a factor contributing to most differences between these groups. The results indicate that nonbelievers compose perhaps a more heterogenous group than assumed earlier, also when cognitive factors are taken into acknowledge. This is something to be taken into account in further studies.
-
(2020)Goals: It has been suggested that evolutionarily evolved cognitive biases may predispose human minds toward supernatural belief. However, not all people claim to believe in supernatural, and according to dual process theories of cognition this can be explained by individual differences in general thinking styles. The aim of this study was to integrate the theoretical approaches of cognitive biases and general thinking styles to explain paranormal and religious belief. Specifically, the aim was to examine whether differences in intuitive and analytical thinking styles mediate the relationship of two cognitive biases, ontological confusions and promiscuous teleological thinking, to paranormal and religious belief. Methods: The data included Finnish respondents (N = 2479) to an online survey that consisted of performance and self-report measures concerning ontological confusions, promiscuous teleological thinking, intuitive and analytical thinking styles and paranormal and religious beliefs. A structural equation model was conducted to examine the mediation pathways. Results: Ontological confusions and intuitive thinking style were the primary predictors of supernatural belief. Promiscuous teleological thinking was weakly related to supernatural belief. General thinking styles partly mediated the relation between cognitive biases and supernatural belief, and the mechanisms were somewhat different depending on the belief type. Ontological confusions predicted primarily paranormal belief but were only weakly connected to religious belief. Only intuitive thinking style mediated the connections to paranormal belief, whereas both intuitive and actively open-minded thinking styles mediated the connections to religious belief. Conclusions: The results show that ontological confusions and intuitive thinking style are important cognitive factors in understanding supernatural belief. Analytical thinking may, however, have a lesser role in understanding supernatural belief and it may be mainly related to scepticism towards religious belief. The results suggest that paranormal beliefs may be more directly related to underlying supernatural intuitions, whereas other factors such as social and cultural factors, may be more important in understanding religious belief.
Now showing items 1-2 of 2