Analytic Thinking, Religiosity, and Defensiveness Against Secularism: Absence of Causality

This study examined the negative associations between religiosity and analytic thinking and defensiveness against secularism as a potential explanation. In 14 experimental studies, with n = 3,232 (n = 2,615 retained in the final analyses) American Protestant, Catholic, and nonreligious participants, we tested six causal hypotheses: analytic thinking decreases religiosity (H1), analytic thinking decreases defensiveness (H2), defensiveness increases religiosity (H3), religiosity decreases analytic thinking (H4), religiosity increases defensiveness (H5), and defensiveness decreases analytic thinking (H6). Results for each study and meta-analytic results supported none of the hypotheses, and equivalence tests suggested 1/6 of the effects were not essentially different from 0. In conclusion, there was no causal evidence that religiosity and analytic thinking conflicted with each other, and the effects were weak at best.

Automated summary

This study found no significant negative association between religiosity and analytic thinking, and no causal evidence to support the claim that religiosity hinders analytical thinking.