Science & Technology

Belief in God Boils Down to a Gut Feeling

Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience
Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:32 UTC

For many people, believing in God comes down to a gut feeling that a benevolent deity is out there. A study now finds that gut feelings may be very important in determining who goes to church every Sunday and who avoids the pews.

People who are generally more intuitive in the way they think and make decisions are more likely to believe in God than those who ruminate over their choices, the researchers found. The findings suggest that basic differences in thinking style can influence religious belief.

"Some say we believe in God because our intuitions about how and why things happen lead us to see a divine purpose behind ordinary events that don't have obvious human causes," study researcher Amitai Shenhav of Harvard University said in a statement. "This led us to ask whether the strength of an individual's beliefs is influenced by how much they trust their natural intuitions versus stopping to reflect on those first instincts."

Shenhav and his colleagues investigated that question in a series of studies. In the first, 882 American adults answered online surveys about their belief in God. Next, the participants took a three-question math test with questions such as, "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 intuitive answer to that question is 10 cents, since most people's first impulse is to knock $1 off the total. But people who use "reflective" reasoning to question their first impulse are more likely to get the correct answer: 5 cents.

Sure enough, people who went with their intuition on the math test were found to be one-and-a-half times more likely to believe in God than those who got all the answers right. The results held even when taking factors such as education and income into account.

In a second study, 373 participants were told to write a paragraph about either successfully using their intuition or successfully reasoning their way to an answer. Those who wrote about the intuitive experience were more likely to say they were convinced of God's existence after the experiment, suggesting that triggering intuitive thinking boosts belief.

The researchers plan to investigate how genes and education influence thinking styles, but they're quick to note that neither intuition nor reflection is inherently superior.

"It's not that one way is better than the other," study researcher David Rand of Harvard said in a statement. "Intuitions are important and reflection is important, and you want some balance of the two. Where you are on that spectrum affects how you come out in terms of belief in God."

The research was published Sept. 19 online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.

Reader Comments

Ruth · 2011-09-21T18:49:46Z

Religion, God, not synonomous

I had to laugh when I read the title... Do you think God CARES whether people believe or not? I think not. God does not need people's anything (belief, faith, prayers, approval, whatever) - to exist, at all. Not one iota.

Now religion, on the other hand (not to be confused with God) lots of people care about! Religion seems to need a lot of 'stuff' to exist. Mainly all the 'stuff' that God doesn't need!

I believe in God, but find religion a human initiated disapointment. All my gut tells me is when I'm hungry.

l_e_cox · 2011-09-22T00:29:34Z

This research is confused.

I took a test that included the exact question mentioned in the article. I knew it was an algebra problem, so I just did the algebra. When I don't know the correct technology to solve a problem that should have one obvious answer, then I do the best I can. And that goes double for problems that don't have obvious answers! Now, I don't "believe in God" but I do recognize the existence of the spirit. So, does this make me "intuitive" or "reflective?"

For some reason they used a "3 question math test" to measure "thinking style." I would use a math test to measure "how will this person react to a math test?" Does that really equate to "thinking style?" If some people who took the test and knew algebra got the problem wrong, then I would assume that they just didn't care that much about whether or not they aced the test. So my conclusion would be: People who take math tests seriously are less likely to believe in God. That even makes some sense.

Then it says that writing an essay made some people "convinced of God's existence." Is that really all it takes? So, the next day, they could write another essay and they wouldn't be convinced any more? That's doesn't sound very much like someone who "believes in God." A belief like that is a conviction you stick with. It's not like deciding what color dress to wear this evening.

And then they say they want to see if genes (and education) have anything to do with "thinking style." Well, that's great, except they have left out several huge factors. How about life experience? How about programming received below awareness for external sources?

I don't plan to start taking these guys seriously until I see some signs that they know what they're talking about.

OhSoCuriouSo · 2011-09-22T13:36:15Z

There's much in this article not identified, but

nonetheless important to the claims being made. You'd have to read, like all scientific journalism, the original study (and associated studies) from which this article derives its claims. There's always an attempt on the part of science writers to clarify without the use of confusing - to the layperson - jargon, thereby limiting scope of what can be understood from this third-hand account. Likewise, there appears to be all kinds of assumptions, here. What of the quality of God or of gods, in general? That is to say, it is assumed that gods is appropriately conceptualized as external and not immanent to the experiencer. I would suspect that a fair deal of non-intuitive types (which is to say they may be intuitive but don't approach the world that way) holding belief in a god, would say their god is external. In contrast, intuitives - generally more aware of generative internal processes - would be of the opposite opinion. I guess (although I can see how relationship to experience of internal states could muddy this clarity of mine!). Also, there is a clear confusion of conviction, belief, awareness and faith in all of this. And, tangentially related to this is a consideration of the modes of experimentation derived through the rationalized mechanisms of mind (or some other psycho-emotional complex... "rational" or otherwise described, as though rationality is rational) and their impact or impediment upon the ability of a seeker or evaluator of discovered information to understand what the heck one has found. This reductive approach would grant faith as reducible in a correlative manner to an intuition which is reducible to chemistry, as though correlation of brain states to representations of mind bearing meaning is causation of the same states of mind. Moreover, what of the phenomenon of cognitive dissonance? Would it, too, have a role to play, as it is quite possible to be of "two minds" in the way one experiences reality? It would, then, be nice to see if they've controlled for context. This would have to include the surroundings in which the test occurred (i.e. probably some graduate student's testing room in a Department of Neuroscience and Psychology amongst a Caucasian, urban campus of American 20-somethings desiring extra credit for PSY101... but, admittedly, I haven't read the studies).

System · 2011-09-23T14:44:33Z

This part amuses me:
---
"It's not that one way is better than the other," study researcher David Rand of Harvard said in a statement. "Intuitions are important and reflection is important, and you want some balance of the two. Where you are on that spectrum affects how you come out in terms of belief in God."
---

Well, seems like reflection was the way that produced correct answers, not intuition, so it would seem that at least applying reflection appropriately (i.e. while taking a math test) over intuition is an important skill.

I also think it's fairly telling that a mindless belief in god (or anything) creates a feedback loop that reinforces your unsupported belief(s) in general.

peterk312 · 2011-09-27T19:57:01Z

News Media Distiortion!

This title: Belief in God Boils Down to a Gut Feeling is the worst media distortion of scientific research in psychology I've ever seen. There's a critique of the original study, Divine Intuition: Cognitive Style Influences belief in God here: [Link]