[Hac-announce] Thinking style explains variations in belief in God according to recent studies

[Thomas Platt]

The simplified, stripped-down, take-home lesson?

On Sep 25, 2011, Manny Ratafia sent the following derivative article,  
ie, not written by the researchers themselves:

Intuitive Thinking May Influence Belief in God
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110920121615.htm

Excerpt:
In the first part of the study, 882 U.S. adults, with a mean age of  
33 and consisting of 64 percent women, completed online surveys about  
their belief in God before taking a cognitive reflection test. The  
test had three math problems with incorrect answers that seemed  
intuitive. For example, one question stated: "A bat and a ball cost  
$1.10 in total. The bat costs $1 more than the ball. How much does  
the ball cost?" The automatic or intuitive answer is 10 cents, but  
the correct answer is 5 cents. Participants who had more incorrect  
answers showed a greater reliance on intuition than reflection in  
their thinking style.

Participants who gave intuitive answers to all three problems were 1  
½ times as likely to report they were convinced of God's existence as  
those who answered all of the questions correctly.


My recasting of the last sentence above:

Those who agreed with all three answers that superficially seemed  
correct, but were actually incorrect, were 1 1/2 times as likely to  
report they were convinced of God's existence as those who answered  
all of the questions correctly.  The first group, who got the  
questions wrong, were considered "intuitive thinkers" by the  
researchers.  Those who got all of them right were dubbed "reflective  
thinkers".


 From here, I would think a clarification of the skills necessary to  
get the questions right as opposed to the apparent lack of those in  
the group with the mistaken answers would have been appropriate.   
Then an open-minded discussion of the two answering styles and the  
respective group tendencies to strongly believe in God or not would  
have been in order.  Perhaps the original research paper did a better  
job of it (or not) than this derivative article.

	Tom Platt

  
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