Los psicólogos suelen dividir el pensamiento en dos grandes categorías: el pensamiento intuitivo, que es rápido y sin esfuerzo (y que permite, por ejemplo, saber casi instantáneamente si alguien está enojado o triste por el aspecto de su mirada) y el pensamiento analítico, más lento y deliberado (y que se utiliza para resolver problemas matemáticos y otras tareas dificultosas). Ambas formas de pensar tienen sus puntos fuertes y débiles, que a menudo parecen hacerlos entrar en conflicto. Según Will Gervais (Universidad de la Columbia Británica, Vancouver, Canadá), co-autor de un nuevo estudio publicado en Science: "recientemente se ha llegado a un consenso entre [los investigadores] de que muchas de las creencias religiosas están basadas en procesos intuitivos".
En dicho estudio se utilizaron varias estrategias para hacer poner subconscientemente a los sujetos del estudio en actitudes analíticas. En un experimento llevado a cabo con 57 estudiantes de pregrado, un grupo observó obras de arte que muestran pensamiento reflexivo (como El Pensador de Rodin), mientras que otro grupo de control hacía lo mismo con obras que representan actividades menos intelectuales (como el Discóbolo de Mirón) antes de responder cuestionarios acerca de su fe. En otro experimento realizado con 93 estudiantes y con una muestra más grande de 148 adultos estadounidenses reclutados on-line, algunos sujetos resolvieron puzles de palabras que incluían algunas como "analizar", "razón" y "reflexionar", mientras que el grupo de control completaba puzzles similares conteniendo únicamente palabras no relacionadas con el pensamiento, como "alto" y "plano. Después se sometió a todos los sujetos a un cuestionario sobre creencias religiosas. En todos los casos, las personas que habían sido expuestas a señales (obras de arte o puzles) relacionadas con el pensamiento, demostraron tener creencias religiosas más débiles que el grupo de control.
En un experimento final, Gervais y Norenzayan pidieron a 182 voluntarios que respondieran a un cuestionario religioso impreso normalmente, mientras que otros respondieron el mismo cuestionario impreso en un tipo de letra difícil de leer (estudios previos han demostrado que eso promueve el pensamiento analítico). Nuevamente, aquellos que tuvieron que trabajar más duro para entender el cuestionario, obtuvieron puntuaciones más bajas en sus creencias religiosas.
Dado que los sujetos del estudio fueron asignados aleatoriamente a los grupos de pensamiento analítico y de control y que los resultados fueron similares en todos los experimentos, Gervais opina que es muy poco probable que los hallazgos se derivaran de que un grupo era inicialmente más religioso que el otro. Además, en dos de los experimentos, los investigadores habían hecho resolver, algunas semanas antes, cuestionarios religiosos a todos los sujetos del estudio y no habían encontrado diferencias entre los grupos.
Para los autores del estudio los resultados sugieren que el pensamiento intuitivo, probablemente junto con otros factores cognitivos y culturales, es un ingrediente clave en las creencias religiosas. Según el neurocientífico y filósofo Joshua Greene (de la Universidad de Harvard y co-autor de un reciente estudio publicado en el Journal of Experimental Psychology demostrando que las personas más propensas a decir que poseen fuertes creencias religiosas optaban siempre por dar respuestas intuitivas (y equivocadas) a preguntas con respuestas atractivamente intuitivas pero que resultaban ser incorrectas [Ver la gráfica que aparece más abajo y ques está tomada de ese estudio]): "Nuestras mentes son intuitivamente receptivas a la religión gracias a una combinación de la cultura y la biología .../...Si vamos a ser irreligiosos, es probable que sea debido a que hemos reflexionado sobre ello y hemos encontrado algunas cosas difíciles de creer".
Como dice Nicholas Epley, psicólogo de la Universidad de Chicago: "de alguna manera esto confirma lo que muchas personas, religiosas y no religiosas, han venido diciendo desde hace mucho tiempo acerca de las creencia religiosas: que se trata más de sentimiento quede un pensamiento". Pero también opina que esto no va a cambiar la mente de nadie acerca de si Dios existe o si religión es racional. "Si usted cree que el razonamiento analítico es la forma de tratar de entender el mundo con precisión, es posible que esto le parezca una evidencia de que ser religioso no tiene mucho sentido". Por el contrario "si eres una persona religiosa, tomarás esto como prueba de que Dios te ha dado una forma de pensar tal que él se te revela a través del sentido común".
Many people with religious convictions feel that their faith is rock solid. But a new study finds that prompting people to engage in analytical thinking can cause their religious beliefs to waver, if only a little. Researchers say the findings have potentially significant implications for understanding the cognitive underpinnings of religion
Psychologists often carve thinking into two broad categories: intuitive thinking, which is fast and effortless (instantly knowing whether someone is angry or sad from the look on her face, for example); and analytic thinking, which is slower and more deliberate (and used for solving math problems and other tricky tasks). Both kinds of thinking have their strengths and weaknesses, and they often seem to interfere with one another. According to Will Gervais, (University of British Columbia, Vancouver, in Canada) co-author of a new study published in Science: “recently there's been an emerging consensus among [researchers] that a lot of religious beliefs are grounded in intuitive processes".
In the study, several ways were devised to subconsciously put people in what they considered a more analytical mindset. In one experiment with 57 undergraduate students, some volunteers viewed artwork depicting a reflective thinking pose (such as Rodin's The Thinker) while others viewed art depicting less intellectual pursuits (such as Miron’s Discobolus) before answering questionnaires about their faith. In another experiment with 93 undergraduates and a larger sample of 148 American adults recruited online, some subjects solved word puzzles that incorporated words such as "analyze," "reason," and "ponder," while others completed similar puzzles with only words unrelated to thinking, such as "high" and "plane." In all of these experiments, people who got the thinking-related cues reported weaker religious beliefs on the questionnaires taken afterward than did the control group.
In a final experiment, Gervais and Norenzayan asked 182 volunteers to answer a religious questionnaire printed as usual, while others answered the same questionnaire printed in a hard-to-read font, which previous studies have found promotes analytic thinking. And indeed, those who had to work harder to comprehend the questionnaire rated their religious beliefs lower.
Because people were randomly assigned to the analytical-thinking and control groups, and because the results were consistent across all their experiments, Gervais says it's very unlikely the findings could result from one group being more religious to begin with. Moreover, in two of these experiments, the researchers administered religious belief questionnaires to the participants a few weeks beforehand and found no difference between the groups.
To the authors, the findings suggest that intuitive thinking, likely along with other cognitive and cultural factors, is a key ingredient in religious belief. According to Joshua Greene (neuroscientist and philosopher at Harvard University and co-author of a paper recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology showing that people with strong religious beliefs always chose intuitive (and wrong) answers to questions with appealingly intuitive answers that turn out to be wrong [See the above Figure taken from that study]) "Through some combination of culture and biology, our minds are intuitively receptive to religion…./… If you're going to be unreligious, it's likely going to be due to reflecting on it and finding some things that are hard to believe."
"In some ways this confirms what many people, both religious and nonreligious, have said about religious belief for a long time, that it's more of a feeling than a thought," says Nicholas Epley, a psychologist at the University of Chicago. But he predicts the findings won't change anyone's mind about whether God exists or whether religious belief is rational. "If you think that reasoning analytically is the way to go about understanding the world accurately, you might see this as evidence that being religious doesn't make much sense .../... If you're a religious person, I think you take this evidence as showing that God has given you a system for belief that just reveals itself to you as common sense."
Tomado de/Taken from Science
Resumen de la publicación/Abstract of the paper
Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief
Will M. Gervais and Ara Norenzayan, Science 336 493-496 (2012)
DOI: 10.1126/science.1215647
Abstract
Scientific interest in the cognitive underpinnings of religious belief has grown in recent years. However, to date, little experimental research has focused on the cognitive processes that may promote religious disbelief. The present studies apply a dual-process model of cognitive processing to this problem, testing the hypothesis that analytic processing promotes religious disbelief. Individual differences in the tendency to analytically override initially flawed intuitions in reasoning were associated with increased religious disbelief. Four additional experiments provided evidence of causation, as subtle manipulations known to trigger analytic processing also encouraged religious disbelief. Combined, these studies indicate that analytic processing is one factor (presumably among several) that promotes religious disbelief. Although these findings do not speak directly to conversations about the inherent rationality, value, or truth of religious beliefs, they illuminate one cognitive factor that may influence such discussions.
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