Browsing by Author "Keskinen, Liisa"

Analyzing the relationship between analytical thinking and religion has produced rather consistent results. The purpose of this literature review is to assemble research data and find out what kind of connection there is between analytical cognitive style and religion and what could explain the connection. There were used both correlative and experimental studies to investigate the relationship between analytical thinking and religion. There was a weak negative connection between analytical thinking and religion. This connection was systematically observed in numerous studies. More analytically-minded people were therefore less religious on average compared to people who were not inclined to analytical thinking. Experimental studies used, among other things, a verbal and visual priming method to stimulate analytical thinking, resulting in a decline in religion. However, it is not yet known how long or under what circumstances an analytical priming effect will occur. This may explain why experimental studies have also yielded contradictory results. Attempts have been made to explain the connection. Conflict detection theory has the idea that people with analytical cognitive style are better to detect contradictions in situations requiring reasoning and, consequently, to adopt an analytical mindset. On the other hand, it has been suggested that the cause of the connection would be cognitive ability or epistemic rationality. In these studies, the connection between religion and analytical cognitive style remained after controlling cognitive ability or epistemic rationality. Research suggests that, while cognitive ability and epistemic rationality are related to religion, they do not remove the negative connection between analytical thinking and religion. Longitudinal studies are needed to be able to say about the causal relationship between analytical thinking and religion.