Neuroscience
Why are most people in the world religious? Some say it is because we're naturally predisposed to believe in a god or gods and that religion brought evolutionary advantages to our ancestors. But if that's the case, how come there are over half a billion atheists in the world? One theory is that atheists consciously suppress their instincts for religion, with only varying degrees of success. A new study provides tentative support for this idea. Marjaana Lindeman and her colleagues report that atheists get just as stressed as religious people when they ask God to do nasty things, as in "I dare God to make someone murder my parents cruelly."
The researchers tested 16 atheists and 13 religious people (Finns aged 17 to 45 recruited via a skeptics group and bible group, respectively). The participants were wired up to a skin conductance machine that records the sweatiness of the fingers - a basic marker of stress. Next the participants read aloud 36 sentences - some were requests for God to do something awful; others were offensive statements not involving God (e.g. it's okay to kick a puppy in the face); and the remainder were neutral (e.g. I hope it's not raining today).
The participants' views about this experience differed as you'd expect. The religious folk found the God-related statements more unpleasant than the atheists. However, they were no more likely than the atheists to refuse to utter the God statements, or to retract them later when given the chance. Most importantly, skin conductance was higher for both participant groups when reading the God statements compared with the neutral statements. Moreover, across both groups, skin conductance when reading the God statements did not vary according to a person's level of religious belief. The atheists seemed to get just as stressed as believers when daring God to do awful things.
An obvious flaw in this evidence is that the mention of God was confounded with horrible outcomes. Perhaps the atheists were stressed reading the God statements simply because of the ideas involved, not because of God's role per se. A second study examined this with nineteen more Finnish atheists (aged 20 to 30). The participants were wired up to the skin conductance machine while they uttered unpleasant sentences involving God (e.g. "I dare God to make me die of cancer") or not involving God (e.g. "I wish I would die of cancer"). Signs of stress were higher for the God statements, suggesting the involvement of God brings some extra stress to atheists beyond the unpleasant outcomes involved.
"The results imply that while atheists' and religious individuals' beliefs about God and explicit attitudes towards God statements are different, they become equally emotionally aroused when daring God to do unpleasant things," the researchers said.
The study has its limitations - the participant samples were very small for a start - and the findings are difficult to interpret. Certainly it would be inappropriate to conclude that the results prove atheists believe in God at a subconscious level. Other plausible explanations for the findings include atheists finding the God statements stressful because they know friends or family who do believe in God; or perhaps atheists experience stress reading the God statements because the wording implies God is real, which runs counter to their own beliefs.
_________________________________
Lindeman, M., Heywood, B., Riekki, T., and Makkonen, T. (2013). Atheists become emotionally aroused when daring God to do terrible things. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2013.771991
--Further reading--
The unscientific thinking that forever lingers in the minds of physics professors
Religion causes a chronic biasing of visual attention
The children of securely attached mothers think that God is close
Can God make people more aggressive?
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Atheists as stressed as believers when daring God to do bad things
The researchers tested 16 atheists and 13 religious people (Finns aged 17 to 45 recruited via a skeptics group and bible group, respectively). The participants were wired up to a skin conductance machine that records the sweatiness of the fingers - a basic marker of stress. Next the participants read aloud 36 sentences - some were requests for God to do something awful; others were offensive statements not involving God (e.g. it's okay to kick a puppy in the face); and the remainder were neutral (e.g. I hope it's not raining today).
The participants' views about this experience differed as you'd expect. The religious folk found the God-related statements more unpleasant than the atheists. However, they were no more likely than the atheists to refuse to utter the God statements, or to retract them later when given the chance. Most importantly, skin conductance was higher for both participant groups when reading the God statements compared with the neutral statements. Moreover, across both groups, skin conductance when reading the God statements did not vary according to a person's level of religious belief. The atheists seemed to get just as stressed as believers when daring God to do awful things.
An obvious flaw in this evidence is that the mention of God was confounded with horrible outcomes. Perhaps the atheists were stressed reading the God statements simply because of the ideas involved, not because of God's role per se. A second study examined this with nineteen more Finnish atheists (aged 20 to 30). The participants were wired up to the skin conductance machine while they uttered unpleasant sentences involving God (e.g. "I dare God to make me die of cancer") or not involving God (e.g. "I wish I would die of cancer"). Signs of stress were higher for the God statements, suggesting the involvement of God brings some extra stress to atheists beyond the unpleasant outcomes involved.
"The results imply that while atheists' and religious individuals' beliefs about God and explicit attitudes towards God statements are different, they become equally emotionally aroused when daring God to do unpleasant things," the researchers said.
The study has its limitations - the participant samples were very small for a start - and the findings are difficult to interpret. Certainly it would be inappropriate to conclude that the results prove atheists believe in God at a subconscious level. Other plausible explanations for the findings include atheists finding the God statements stressful because they know friends or family who do believe in God; or perhaps atheists experience stress reading the God statements because the wording implies God is real, which runs counter to their own beliefs.
_________________________________
Lindeman, M., Heywood, B., Riekki, T., and Makkonen, T. (2013). Atheists become emotionally aroused when daring God to do terrible things. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2013.771991
--Further reading--
The unscientific thinking that forever lingers in the minds of physics professors
Religion causes a chronic biasing of visual attention
The children of securely attached mothers think that God is close
Can God make people more aggressive?
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
- Distrust Of Atheists Is "deeply And Culturally Ingrained" Even Among Atheists
Just as people throughout history have been subject to prejudice and persecution because of their religious beliefs, recent evidence suggests that atheists today are discriminated against because of their lack of faith. For instance, in a 2012 study,...
- Paranormal Believers And Religious People Are More Prone To Seeing Faces That Aren't Really There
Our brains are so adept at detecting faces that we often see them in random patterns, such as clouds or the gnarled bark of a tree. Occasionally one of these illusory faces comes along that resembles a celebrity and the story ends up in the news - like...
- Religion Causes A Chronic Biasing Of Visual Attention
As the Pope arrives in the UK, a provocative new study claims that religious practice changes people's attentional mindset (how much they're focused on detail vs. the big picture), not just while they're still a believer but even for years...
- Trying To Predict Who Will Be A Happy Doctor
Being a doctor can be incredibly stressful and more than a fifth of junior physicians wish they'd never taken medicine in the first place. Moreover, there's evidence showing that stressed doctors are bad doctors, so it would make sense if applicants...
- Testing Mediums
Can mediums really speak with the dead? Scientists have been testing mediums since the nineteenth century, but according to Ciaran O’Keeffe and Richard Wiseman, their experiments have always suffered from serious methodological flaws that might allow...