2018/05/01 by Will M. Gervais, Michiel van Elk, Dimitris Xygalatas +9 · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology #Cultural Differences and Values #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Atheism #Generality #Psychology #Social psychology #Epistemology #Cognition #Belief in God #Sociology #Philosophy
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1930297500007701
openalex publication_date 2018/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/22
Abstract Religious belief is a topic of longstanding interest to psychological science, but the psychology of religious disbelief is a relative newcomer. One prominently discussed model is analytic atheism , wherein cognitive reflection, as measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test, overrides religious intuitions and instruction. Consistent with this model, performance-based measures of cognitive reflection predict religious disbelief in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, & Democratic) samples. However, the generality of analytic atheism remains unknown. Drawing on a large global sample ( N = 3461) from 13 religiously, demographically, and culturally diverse societies, we find that analytic atheism as usually assessed is in fact quite fickle cross-culturally, appearing robustly only in aggregate analyses and in three individual countries. The results provide additional evidence for culture’s effects on core beliefs.