Extreme beliefs about "extremism": Religious incivility and the Libya riot

According to some commentators, the recent riot in Libya in which an embassy was burned and four Americans killed may be viewed as an extreme response to "extremism". Huffington Post blogger Ahmed Shihab-Eldin argues that:

Were it not for YouTube, perhaps Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, would still be alive.

He was of course referring to the video by Sam Bacile in which the prophet Muhammad is insulted. He then goes on to say that, "extremism begets extremism." 

This sentiment was echoed by social psychologist Ravi Iyer, who goes on to state that, "Killing begets killing. Violence begets violence." He then goes on to compare Bacile to other "extremists":

Indeed, there is clear evidence that Sam Bacile, Terry Jones, Osama Bin Laden, Charles Manson, and other extremists understand this implicitly and commit their extremist acts with the idea of inciting a wider war.

The implicit assumption here is that making and posting a film intended to insult a religious group is an act of "extremism" and that this is somehow in the same class of actions as violently mobbing an embassy or carrying out acts of terror. Note that Terry Jones is classed as one of these "extremists". His terrifying act of extremism was to burn a book deemed sacred by certain people. Offensive as this might be to Muslims, I hardly think this is in any way comparable to the actions of people like Charles Manson or Osama bin Laden who were responsible for the actual killing of human beings. 

Posting an offensive video is not an act of "violence" in any sensible use of the word, and certainly not a form of killing as no-one actually died in the making of the film as far as I know. I have only watched part of the video, but to the best of my knowledge it does not advocate that anyone be killed. What justification could there be for regarding an offensive film as “extremism”?

Perhaps Iyer and Shihab-Eldin think that insulting someone else’s religion is immoral. According to Graham and Haidt (2010) traditional forms of morality regard respect for the “sacred” as a moral value in its own right, independent of other moral concerns, such as whether or not an action is harmful to others. Jonathon Haidt has written a book apparently arguing that respect for the sacred is not just a source of moral sentiments but actually remains an indispensable foundation for morality even in the post-enlightenment secular Western world. But is this really true? Beliefs about the sacred are inherently divisive as not everyone can agree on what is sacred. Hence sacred concerns cannot form a universal basis of morality. Demanding that people show respect for other people’s “sacred” beliefs presents difficulties, as this leads into the demand that some things cannot be criticised because it may offend somebody. This presents an obvious conflict with the right of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech reflects the freedom to think. Declaring some things off-limits to criticism is like demanding that people not think certain thoughts. Ronald Lindsay has pointed out that concern for the sacred has been used repeatedly to justify inequality and oppression. Furthermore, history has been filled with atrocities performed in the name of the sacred.   

Ravi Iyer does cite more pragmatic concerns, arguing that incivility is provocative and regularly leads to violence. Research does confirm that provocation is perhaps the single most important cause of aggression (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). But does this mean that the video is to blame for the actions of people who chose to go into the streets with assault rifles with the intention of burning a building while people were inside? Where is the responsibility here? If a man comes up to me and says, "You're mother is a whore!" am I not responsible for how I choose to react? Even if the man is deliberately trying to incite me to fight, I would still be held legally responsible in a court of law if I chose to react with violence. As a human being I have a choice about how I react to provocation. In such a situation I have many choices, such as telling the man he is a stupid idiot and walking away. 

Violence does not simply follow on from provocation in the way that night follows day. There is a choice involved. Iyer cites a number of research studies to support his claim that group reactions to “conflict, extremism, violence, and incivility/demonization” are fairly predictable. Notably, Iyer lumps in ‘incivility’ with ‘demonization’ as if they are the same thing, and these are grouped with violence and extremism as if these are of comparable levels of severity. One of the studies cited discusses the role of humiliation in the Rwandan genocide. The examples of humiliation (e.g. repeated imprisonment) cited in that article are clearly more serious than the screening of an offensive film. Two of the other references deal with mortality salience (reminders of one’s own eventual death) and the relevance of this research to the present issue is unclear. Iyer also cites studies on retaliation to actual violence against one’s in-group (Lickel, Miller, Stenstrom, Denson, & Schmader, 2006) and on social rejection (Gaertner, Iuzzini, & O’Mara, 2008). The relevance of these is also unclear as the Libya riots were not a response to actual violence or to being rejected from group membership.

Furthermore, although provocation plays an important role in eliciting aggression, research also shows that when people choose to react with violence to provocation, it is because they have a value system in which violence is an acceptable, or even expected, response (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). If someone is raised in a "culture of honour" they may believe that failure to respond to a provocation with aggression will be seen as a sign of being weak (Cohen et al., 1996). Youth gang violence, for example, has been linked to codes of honour or respect (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). Most people have strong inhibitions against violence, and only become aggressive when these inhibitions are over-ridden. Moral justifications can over-ride these inhibitions. Common justifications for extreme violence involve arguments that it is for a greater good or that honour demands it (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). Additionally, victims may be dehumanised, so that that they are thought to be undeserving of moral concern (Anderson & Bushman, 2002). If someone believes that an insult to their religion or holy book is equivalent to a shocking crime that must be avenged, violence is the predictable result. 

A Muslim protester in London demonstrating against Danish cartoons depicting Muhammad. (Image source.)

Imagine, John Lennon asked, a world with ‘nothing to kill or die for.’ Consider what the world might be like if people generally believed that violence was never an acceptable response to a mere insult. Would not the world be a more peaceful place? Is this too much to ask for? Ahmed Shihab-Eldin argued that it is intolerance, not Islam, that is the real cancer. But does tolerance mean that critics of religion must shut up so that some people will not be offended? What happened to tolerance of differing opinions? Any religion, or interpretation of religion if you prefer, that preaches that violence is an acceptable response to non-violent provocation is preaching intolerance. People have the right to be upset when they feel insulted. No-one has the right to go out and kill people and spread terror just because they are upset. 

Déjà vu? "Peaceful" protesters demonstrating in Sydney advocating murder. 

Iyer may actually have a good point that incivility causes divisiveness and is therefore unwise, but it is hardly morally equivalent to extremism. Blaming rudeness for resulting acts of violence absolves those who choose to engage in violent acts of moral responsibility. The world will be better off when people realise that not being offended is a preference and not a human right. Having opinions about what is “sacred” can never excuse violence.  

Follow me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

References

Anderson, Craig A., & Bushman, Brad J. (2002). Human aggression Annual Review of Psychology, 53 (1), 27-51 DOI: 10.1146/annurev.psych.53.100901.135231

Cohen D, Nisbett RE, Bowdle BF, & Schwarz N. (1996). Insult, aggression, and the southern culture of honor: an "experimental ethnography" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70 (5), 945-959 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.70.5.945

Gaertner, L., Iuzzini, J., & O’Mara, E. M. (2008). When rejection by one fosters aggression against many: Multiple-victim aggression as a consequence of social rejection and perceived groupness. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(4), 958-970. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2008.02.004

Graham J, & Haidt J (2010). Beyond beliefs: religions bind individuals into moral communities. Personality and social psychology review : an official journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc, 14 (1), 140-50 PMID: 20089848

Lickel, B., Miller, N., Stenstrom, D. M., Denson, T. F., & Schmader, T. (2006). Vicarious Retribution: The Role of Collective Blame in Intergroup Aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10(4), 372-390. doi: 10.1207/s15327957pspr1004_6

Further reading:
A number of well-written articles discussing free speech in relation to religion can be found here, here, here, and here. A thoughtful critique of the current push for blasphemy laws can be read here. 

An earlier version of this article appears on Cosmic Cogitations

Turning the mind to the future: clockwise movements increase openness to experience

Research has found that bodily movements are symbolically associated with movement in time. Clockwise movements are associated with progression into the future, whereas counterclockwise movements are associated with the reversal of time, and hence with regression into the past (Topolinski & Sparenberg, 2012). Progression in time is associated with novelty, and conversely, regression into the past is associated with returning to the old and familiar. A recent research study found that performing clockwise movements actually increased a person’s preference for novelty, whilst counterclockwise movements increased the preference for familiar things. An even more intriguing finding was that clockwise movements even increased self-ratings of openness to experience, a normally stable dimension of personality (Topolinski & Sparenberg, 2012).

 In this study, participants performed tasks such as turning cranks, or rotating rolls of paper towels, in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction. Participants were told the movements were part of a test on multi-tasking, so as far as they knew these actions were simply meaningless body movements. One finding was that when asked to choose different flavours of candy participants who had performed a clockwise movement chose more unusual flavours, whereas those who made a counterclockwise movement preferred more common ones. Thus, the clockwise movers were more willing to try new experiences.

Willingness to try new things is related to the personality trait openness to experience. Generally speaking, there are consistent individual differences in people’s levels of openness to experience and these differences tend to be stable over time. Therefore, I found it particularly fascinating that participants who performed a task involving clockwise movements with their hands subsequently self-reported significantly higher levels of openness to experience compared to those who performed counterclockwise motions. As noted in a previous article, research has found that increases in a person’s state level of openness to experience can be experimentally induced by asking a person to imagine performing actions associated with being very open (Schutte, Malouff, Segrera, Wolf, & Rodgers, 2003). This study was much more subtle in that participants were not consciously aware that the task they were performing had anything to do with their openness.

An intervention that could increase or decrease openness, could potentially be used to influence attitudes and behaviour related to this trait. High openness to experience is associated with a wide range of things besides willingness to try new things, such as political liberalism as opposed to conservatism, artistic creativity, intellectual curiosity, less conventional religious belief but also greater acceptance of mystical and paranormal beliefs. Research has not yet examined whether having people perform clockwise or counterclockwise motions would influence any of these things. It would be interesting to examine whether, for example, a person’s liking for a liberal or conservative political candidate could be influenced by such a procedure. 

Similarly, people could be asked to perform a creative task and their degree of creativity could be rated to determine if prior clockwise movements have a beneficial effect compared to counterclockwise ones.

Higher openness is also associated with intellectual abilities and with general knowledge. Therefore, students about to sit a test might be advised to perform clockwise movements and avoid counterclockwise ones, in order to better access their potential! This too could be experimentally tested by determining if test performance is influenced by this kind of intervention.    

As noted in a previous article, research has found that experimental manipulations to increase analytical thinking as opposed to intuitive thinking tend to decrease religious belief, such as belief in God. Because higher openness to experience is associated to a modest extent with less belief in God, it is possible that clockwise movements might reduce belief in God due to an associated increase in openness, whereas counterclockwise would strengthen such belief. Higher openness is also associated to an extent with greater belief in the paranormal, so similar interventions might influence belief in things like telepathy, witchcraft, and “New Age” ideas.

Topolinski and Sparenberg (2012) noted that movement direction orients a person to the past or the future. Therefore, counterclockwise movements might increase nostalgia for the past whereas clockwise movements might increase interest in speculation about future-related concerns, such as advances in technology. Perhaps this could be tested for example, by asking participants to write a story after performing movement tasks and offering them the choice of writing about a historical event or an imagined future society.

Future research could examine whether other major personality traits and their associated behaviours could be influenced by subtle actions with metaphorical connotations.

Please consider following me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

Further reading

For a sceptical critique of the statistical power of Topolinski & Sparenberg's study, see this paper, pp. 24 -27. 

Other posts discussing the possibilities of priming
Opening the Mind: Where Skepticism and Superstition Meet 
Reason Versus Faith? The Interplay of Intuition and Rationality In Supernatural Belief
Think Like a Man: Effects of Gender Priming on Cognition
Are Sex And Religion Natural Enemies?

References

Schutte, N. S., Malouff, J. M., Segrera, E., Wolf, A., & Rodgers, L. (2003). States reflecting the Big Five dimensions. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(4), 591-603. doi: 10.1016/s0191-8869(02)00031-4

Topolinski, S., & Sparenberg, P. (308). Turning the Hands of Time: Clockwise Movements Increase Preference for Novelty. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 3 (3) DOI: 10.1177/1948550611419266

Think like a man: could gender priming improve female recall of general knowledge?

 As noted in a previous posting, a number of studies have found that males outperform females on tests of general knowledge. The reasons for this are not yet clear. Women’s poorer test performance could be because they actually have acquired less knowledge than men, or it could be that they are not accessing all the knowledge they have. Studies have found that experimental manipulations can actually improve a person’s performance on general knowledge tests to an extent. Women generally perform more poorly than men on spatial tasks, yet it has also been found that it is possible to experimentally improve women’s performance on these tasks so that they equal the performance of men. Whether or not it would be possible to improve women’s performance on tests of general knowledge relative to men has not yet been examined. Such a study would help illuminate whether gender differences in this area are due to real differences in acquired knowledge or mainly due to the nature of the testing situation.

Trivial pursuit questions have been used to experimentally test general knowledge

Sex differences in general knowledge favouring males that were identified in a number of studies have been attributed to differing interests between men and women rather than differences in ability (Lynn & Irwing, 2002; Lynn, Irwing, & Cammock, 2002). Another possibility that has not been explored in the research literature is that stereotype threat could have a detrimental effect on the performance of females in tests. Stereotypes are generally more favourable to men than women in intellectual domains. Men are generally perceived as more intelligent and rate themselves higher on intelligence than women (Ortner & Sieverding, 2008). Stereotypes can have a self-fulfilling effect and have been known to affect performance on achievement tests. For example, women who are reminded of their female identity perform more poorly on maths tests compared to a control group. However, priming of stereotypes can sometimes have a positive effect. Asian women primed with their Asian identity performed better than normally on a maths test.

"Oh no, not a test!!!"

Priming of stereotypes has also been found to affect performance on tests of general knowledge for better or worse (Dijksterhuis & van Knipperburg, 1998). People who were asked to think about a typical soccer hooligan (stereotypically associated with stupidity) and to list behaviours and attributes associated with such a person performed more poorly on a general knowledge test compared to those who took the test with no priming. This experimental procedure was also performed using a prime of a professor (associated with intelligence) rather than a soccer hooligan, and in this case, people actually performed better compared to those who received no priming. Obviously, thinking of professors cannot somehow make a person more knowledgeable than they really are. The authors of this study suggested that a person’s typical performance on such a test is less than optimal, meaning there is usually room for improvement. Priming of the professor stereotype might improve performance by leading to specific behavioural changes, such as increased concentration or more analytical and systematic thinking. The hooligan prime might worsen performance by inducing sloppier thinking or reduced concentration (Dijksterhuis & van Knippenberg, 1998).

Gender differences in spatial tasks are considered to be well-established, having been extensively investigated by researchers. However, there is evidence that priming of stereotypes can improve women’s performance on such tasks to a level equivalent to that of men (Ortner & Sieverding, 2008). The stereotype prime used was that of gender itself. Participants were asked to read a text that was described as “a task to test ability to put oneself in the shoes of another person.” The text consisted of a description of a day in the life of either a “typical woman” or a “typical man”. For example, the typical woman text described a woman who looked after children, spent time chatting with her friends, and who liked to daydream. The typical man text, described a man who drove a motorbike to work, was outgoing and tough-minded, bossed people around at work, and lifted weights in his spare time. Participants were then asked to describe what they would be like if they were that person, to develop a sense of identification with the person in the story. Subsequently, they performed a mental rotation task. After being primed with the story about a typical woman, female participants performed much worse than males. Males who received this prime performed only slightly worse than males who received the typical man prime. What was very striking though was that after receiving the typical man prime, females performed nearly as well as males on this task. The authors argued that these results imply that “normal” testing situations involve subtle stereotype threats, even when stereotypes are not explicitly mentioned. Gender differences in performance can therefore be reduced by changing the way the task is presented.

Experimental tests of general knowledge have so far not examined the effects of stereotypes on gender differences in performance. It is possible that asking people to perform a knowledge test activates a subtle stereotype threat that adversely affects women. Using an experimental priming procedure such as the one described above could enhance the performance of women relative to men on such tests. If this proved to be the case it would imply that women actually know more than they are letting on when they typically perform such tests. On the other hand, if a substantial gender difference remained after such a procedure it would provide evidence that males do tend to acquire more knowledge than females. Perhaps this might be due to a greater interest in understanding how things work, as opposed to a greater interest in interpersonal concerns, which is stereotypically more feminine. Additionally, it is also possible that gender differences in general knowledge are the result of a combination of reduced female performance due to stereotype threat and greater actual knowledge by males. Even if priming stereotypes had a modest effect on female performance compared to that of males, it could provide some guidance on how to assist people of both sexes in using their knowledge more effectively.  

Follow me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

Other posts discussing the possibilities of priming
Opening the Mind: Where Skepticism and Superstition Meet 
Reason Versus Faith? The Interplay of Intuition and Rationality In Supernatural Belief
Turning the Wheels of the MInd - Clockwise movements increase openness to experience

Are Sex And Religion Natural Enemies?

Other posts discussing intelligence related topics

Emotional intelligence is not relevant to understanding psychopaths

Why there are sex differences in general knowledge

The Knowledgeable Personality

Personality, Intelligence and “Race Realism”

Intelligence and Political Orientation have a complex relationship

Cold Winters and the Evolution of Intelligence: A critique of Richard Lynn’s Theory

The Illusory Theory of Multiple Intelligences – a critique of Howard Gardner’s theory

References

Dijksterhuis, A., & van Knippenberg, A. (1998). The relation between perception and behavior, or how to win a game of trivial pursuit.  Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74 (4), 865-877 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.74.4.865

Lynn, R., & Irwing, P. (2002). Sex differences in general knowledge, semantic memory and reasoning ability. British Journal of Psychology, 93(4), 545-556. doi: 10.1348/000712602761381394

Lynn, R., Irwing, P., & Cammock, T. (2002). Sex differences in general knowledge. Intelligence, 30(1), 27-39. doi: 10.1016/s0160-2896(01)00064-2

Ortner, T. M., & Sieverding, M. (2008). Where are the Gender Differences? Male Priming Boosts Spatial Skills in Women Sex Roles, 59 (3-4), 274-281 DOI: 10.1007/s11199-008-9448-9

sciseekclaimtoken-5043670569d13

Further reading

General knowledge and personality

Red gold: the effects of the colour red on tipping of waitresses

 Recent research has found that male patrons tip French waitresses more generously when they are wearing something red. This effect has been found for red lipstick (as opposed to pink or brown lipstick, or none at all) (Guéguen & Jacob, 2012b), a red shirt as opposed to another colour (Guéguen & Jacob, 2012a), and a red ornament worn in the hair (as opposed to no ornaments) (Jacob, Guéguen, & Delfosse, 2012). Lipstick and shirt colour only affected the tipping of male patrons, but interestingly enough both male and female patrons tipped a waitress more generously when she wore something red in her hair. The authors of these papers suggested that waitresses could use this information to increase their income, although whether or not this could have unintended consequences has not yet been explored.

These findings build on research that has shown that men rate women as more sexually attractive when they are associated with the colour red (Elliot & Niesta, 2008). For example, men who were shown a black-and-white photo of a woman rated her as more attractive when the photo was on a red background as opposed to a white one. Female participants on the other hand did not differ in their ratings of how attractive a target woman was based on background colour. Additionally, men indicated more interest in dating a woman, more interest in engaging in sexual behaviour with her, and more willingness to spend money on her, if she was wearing a red rather than a blue shirt. Interestingly, men in these studies were largely unaware that the presence of the colour red was having an effect on them. Furthermore, presence of the colour red had no impact on men’s rating of other highly valued qualities, such as the woman’s kindness, intelligence, or likeability. This means that the colour red does not influence attractiveness by giving the impression of being a nicer person generally, but has a specific effect on sexual desirability.

Another research paper found that women wearing red as opposed to another colour were perceived by men as more interested in having sex and that this perceived sexual receptivity led to increased sexual attraction to the woman (Pazda, Elliot, & Greitemeyer, 2012). Whether or not women choose to wear red because they actually are interested in having sex is not yet known. The authors cautioned that the perception that women wearing red are more receptive to sexual advances could lead to misunderstandings and unwanted sexual attention from men.

The findings on the effects of colour red on men’s perception of women suggests that male restaurant patrons tip waitresses wearing red more generously not only because they perceive them as more attractive but as more sexually receptive. Guéguen and Jacob (2012b) proposed that when male patrons tip more generously they are unconsciously attempting to attract the waitress’ attention. Therefore, generous tips could be interpreted as courtship gifts by male patrons. Men therefore may use tips to demonstrate their status and wealth and so tip more than women do (Lynn & Simons, 2000). Guéguen & Jacob (2012a, 2012b) proposed that allowing waitresses to wear a red shirt or red lipstick may increase their income, as it results in increased tipping by males and has no negative impact on females. Based on the findings so far, wearing an ornament in the hair may be the most effective strategy for waitresses as even female patrons then give better tips, although why this would be the case is not clear. However, perhaps a note of caution needs to be sounded. Wearing red might inadvertently result in unwanted sexual attention from male patrons and the perception that the waitresses are ‘easy’. Future research studies could investigate patrons’ attitudes to waitstaff to determine if these effects do in fact occur and whether there is an increased risk of sexual harassment. Additionally, a recent study suggests that red only increases the attractiveness of young women, but has no effect for women in their forties (Schwarz & Singer). Therefore, older waitresses may not receive any benefits from this strategy.

Having considered tipping of female staff, the question arises as to whether male waiters are likely to benefit from wearing red. Research has not addressed this, but I suspect it is unlikely. Men are perceived by women as more attractive and higher in social status when they wear red (Elliot et al., 2010). However, research on tipping has found that attractiveness is associated with better tips for female but not male wait staff (Lynn & Simons, 2000). Among males but not females, better tips were associated with better self-reported competence. The effect of attractiveness on waitresses’ tips could be due to the higher societal value placed on attractiveness for females than males. The corollary seems to be that there is a higher societal value on competence in males than in females. However, the same study suggested that both sexes can increase their tipping income by being attentive to the individual needs of customers. Tipping may be a form of courtship gifting by men, but it is unusual for women to attract male interest with gifts. Future research could examine whether male waiters can earn increased tips through alterations to their presentation.

Follow me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

References

Elliot, A. J., & Niesta, D. (2008). Romantic red: Red enhances men's attraction to women Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5, 1150-1164 DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.95.5.1150

Elliot, A. J., Kayer, D. N., Greitemeyer, T., Lichtenfeld, S., Gramzow, R. G., & Maier, M. A. (2010). Red, Rank, and Romance in Women Viewing Men. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139(3), 399-417. doi: 10.1037/a0019689

Guéguen, N., & Jacob, C. (2012a). Clothing Color and Tipping: Gentlemen Patrons Give More Tips to Waitresses With Red Clothes. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research. doi: 10.1177/1096348012442546

Guéguen, N., & Jacob, C. (2012b). Lipstick and tipping behavior: When red lipstick enhance waitresses tips. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31(4), 1333-1335. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2012.03.012

Jacob, C., Guéguen, N., & Delfosse, C. (2012). She Wore Something in Her Hair: The Effect of Ornamentation on Tipping. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 21(4), 414-420. doi: 10.1080/19368623.2012.624296

Lynn, M., & Simons, T. (2000). Predictors of male and female servers’ average tip earnings. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 241-252.

Pazda, A. D., Elliot, A. J., & Greitemeyer, T. (2012). Sexy red: Perceived sexual receptivity mediates the red-attraction relation in men viewing woman. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(3), 787-790. doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2011.12.009

Schwarz, S., & Singer, M. Romantic red revisited: Red enhances men's attraction to young, but not menopausal women. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology(0). doi: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.08.004

Opening the mind: where scepticism and superstition meet

As noted in a previous posting, a number of recent papers have found that religious and paranormal beliefs were positively associated with “intuitive” thinking and negatively associated with “analytical” thinking. One of these studies (Shenhav, Rand, & Greene, 2011) investigated personality traits and found that openness to experience had a moderate negative correlation with belief in God, suggesting that the more open to experience people are, the less likely they are to believe. Interestingly this correlation (r = -.32) was larger than the correlation between analytical thinking and God belief (r = -.18), indicating that openness to experience may have a stronger impact on belief than thinking style. Shenhav et al. found that priming intuitive thinking could increase reported belief in God, whereas priming analytical thinking could decrease it. Subsequent studies confirmed that priming analytical thinking reduced both religious and paranormal beliefs (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012; Pennycook, Cheyne, Seli, Koehler,& Fugelsang, 2012). This raises an intriguing possibility that priming openness to experience could have an influence on supernatural belief, although due to the ambiguous nature of openness to experience the results could encompass both increased scepticism or increased superstition.

Openness to experience is a broad feature of personality associated with intellectual curiosity, artistic interests, questioning of traditional values and authority, and willingness to explore new experiences and activities. Openness to experience is positively related to a construct called need for cognition, which is associated with analytical thinking. A survey conducted by the Center for Inquiry found that openness to experience was the personality trait that most strongly distinguished between those who considered themselves religious and those who did not, with the latter scoring higher on this trait (Galen, 2009). However, openness to experience is also positively correlated with paranormal beliefs (Smith, Johnson, & Hathaway, 2009), magical thinking (DeYoung, Grazioplene, & Peterson, 2012) and mystical experience (MacDonald, 2000). Paradoxically perhaps, openness to experience thus encompasses a rather diverse set of characteristics, some of which would seem to support disbelief in religion, whereas others seem to support mystical and spiritual ideas. 

 Sceptical scientists and believers in the occult alike tend to be high in openness to experience

It has been argued that these diverse aspects of openness to experience all share an underlying theme of cognitive exploration of both inner and outer experience (DeYoung, et al., 2012). People who are high in openness to experience are interested in unconventional ideas and have a willingness to question traditional values and beliefs. This might help to explain why both paranormal believers and atheists (who generally tend to be sceptical of all supernatural beliefs) tend to be high in openness to experience. Atheists are willing to question traditional religious beliefs and form their own opinions. People who believe in the paranormal may be attracted to paranormal phenomena because they are outside mainstream experience. Where atheists and paranormal believers may differ is in narrower aspects of personality encompassed by openness to experience. De Young et al. proposed that the traits encompassed by openness to experience fall along a spectrum with the more intellectual aspects, such as need for cognition at one end, and the more unusual experiential traits, such as fantasy-proneness and magical thinking at the other end. People who endorse paranormal beliefs may be more open to fantasy (Smith, et al., 2009) and more prone to unusual perceptual experiences (DeYoung, et al., 2012). Atheists on the other hand tend to self-identify as intellectuals and tend to attribute their lack of belief to their interest in logic and rationality (Caldwell-Harris, Wilson, LoTempio, & Beit-Hallahmi, 2011). Interestingly, although openness to experience and intelligence are moderately positively correlated, in the Shenhav et al. study measures of intelligence had almost no relationship with belief in God. This suggests that belief is more closely related to personality preferences than actual intellectual ability. 

Due to the heterogeneity of the construct, priming openness to experience could have ambiguous effects on supernatural beliefs. The idea of priming openness to experience might seem implausible because personality traits such as openness to experience are usually thought of as enduring characteristics of a person that remain stable over time. Stable traits may be contrasted with more transient states that reflect changes in a person’s mood. For example, some people may be generally sociable (a trait) yet at any given moment how sociable they feel (their state) may vary with their mood. Research has found that stable personality traits have corresponding states and that it is possible to experimentally induce temporary changes in these states (Schutte, Malouff, Segrera, Wolf, & Rodgers, 2003). This was done by asking people to concentrate on imagining themselves in a number of situations where they were acting as if they were in a particular state. For example, state extraversion was induced by asking them to imagine they were the centre of attention at a party. State openness to experience was induced by asking a person to imagine they were having an intellectual discussion. The experimenters found that the inductions did produce significant increases in personality states associated with openness to experience.

As far as I know, no experiments have been done to test whether priming state openness to experience would affect supernatural beliefs. For example a person might be asked to imagine what it would be like to have a very unconventional lifestyle. One reasonable prediction would be that priming openness to experience could reduce more conventional forms of religious belief, but could also increase receptivity to paranormal or mystical ideas. Priming manipulations focusing on narrower aspects of openness might produce more specific results. Thus, asking someone to imagine they were having an intellectual discussion might produce more general scepticism, whereas asking someone to imagine what it would be like to have a rich fantasy life might produce receptivity to more mystical types of thought and experience. Studies that primed analytical thinking did not assess how durable the effects on religious beliefs were. Priming states of openness might have only a transitory effect on a person's beliefs. Nevertheless, research into this area would help shed light on the processes underlying both rational and non-rational beliefs.

Follow me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided.  

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

Other posts discussing the possibilities of priming
Reason Versus Faith? The Interplay of Intuition and Rationality In Supernatural Belief

Think Like a Man: Effects of Gender Priming on Cognition
Turning the Wheels of the MInd - Clockwise movements increase openness to experience

Are Sex And Religion Natural Enemies?

References

 Caldwell-Harris, C. L., Wilson, A. L., LoTempio, E., & Beit-Hallahmi, B. (2011). Exploring the atheist personality: well-being, awe, and magical thinking in atheists, Buddhists, and Christians. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 14 (7), 659-672 DOI: 10.1080/13674676.2010.509847

DeYoung, C. G., Grazioplene, R. G., & Peterson, J. B. (2012). From madness to genius: The Openness/Intellect trait domain as a paradoxical simplex.  Journal of Research in Personality, 46 (1), 63-78 DOI: 10.1016/j.jrp.2011.12.003

Galen, L. W. (2009). Profiles of the godless: Results from a survey of the nonreligious. Free Inquiry, 41-45.

Gervais WM, & Norenzayan A (2012). Analytic thinking promotes religious disbelief. Science (New York, N.Y.), 336 (6080), 493-6 PMID: 22539725

MacDonald, D. A. (2000). Spirituality: Description, Measurement, and Relation to the Five Factor Model of Personality. Journal of Personality, 68(1), 153-197. doi: 10.1111/1467-6494.t01-1-00094

 Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J. A., Seli, P., Koehler, D. J., & Fugelsang, J. A. (2012). Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief  Cognition, 123 (3), 335-346 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.003

Schutte, N. S., Malouff, J. M., Segrera, E., Wolf, A., & Rodgers, L. (2003). States reflecting the Big Five dimensions. Personality and Individual Differences, 34(4), 591-603. doi: 10.1016/s0191-8869(02)00031-4

Shenhav, A., Rand, D., & Greene, J. (2011). Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God Journal of Experimental Psychology: General DOI: 10.1037/a0025391

Smith, C. L., Johnson, J. L., & Hathaway, W. (2009). Personality Contributions to Belief in Paranormal Phenomena. Individual Differences Research, 7(2), 85-96.

Reason versus faith? The interplay of intuition and rationality in supernatural belief

Recent papers (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012; Pennycook, Cheyne, Seli, Koehler, & Fugelsang, 2012; Shenhav,Rand, & Greene, 2011) have suggested that religious and paranormal beliefs are supported by “intuitive” thought processes and that engaging in “analytical” thought processes can weaken these beliefs, at least temporarily. These studies have fascinating implications for the development of non-rational beliefs and suggest possibilities for challenging such beliefs. These studies consider intuition and analytical thought as opposed systems, and while this is frequently applicable, previous research has found that in some people these two modes of thought co-exist to a high degree and their combination supports supernatural beliefs.

These studies are based on a “dual process” model of thought that proposes the existence of two parallel information processing modes. The first mode, sometimes called the experiential system, is intuitive, emotional and immediate. The second mode, sometimes called the rational system, is reflective, logical, and deliberative, and hence takes more time to process information than the intuitive system. There are individual differences in the degree to which people prefer to use either of these systems. Recent studies have found that people who show a greater inclination towards the use of intuitive thinking were more likely to endorse belief in God and the afterlife (Shenhav, et al., 2011) as well as in paranormal phenomena, including psychic powers, witchcraft, astrology and so on (Pennycook, et al., 2012). Pennycook et al. even classified belief in God along a spectrum from most conventional (a personal God exists), through the less conventional (belief in an impersonal higher power or an inactive God), and through into degrees of disbelief (agnosticism and atheism). They found that more conventional God beliefs were associated with more intuitive responses, whereas less conventional beliefs and disbelief were associated with more analytical responses.

Even more intriguing were the results of experimental interventions to manipulate intuitive versus analytical thinking. Belief in God was strengthened by a writing intervention designed to either increase confidence in one’s intuition or reduce confidence in one’s rationality (Shenhav, et al., 2011). Conversely, belief in God was weakened by decreasing confidence in intuition or increasing confidence in rationality. A series of experiments in which rationality was primed were also found to decrease belief in God (Gervais & Norenzayan, 2012). The primes used included viewing a picture of Rodin’s “Thinker”, reading words associated with analytical thinking (think, reason, analyze, ponder, rational), and, remarkably, reading a questionnaire in a difficult to read font. Previous research has found that information presented in a difficult to read font improves subsequent performance on tests of analytical thinking. Notably, none of these interventions involved any form of argumentation against religious belief or any mention of belief at all. People were simply asked to perform these tasks and then they answered questions about their beliefs.  

These findings have interesting implications for attempts at persuasion for or against religious beliefs. Encouraging people to trust their intuitions or gut feelings in matters unrelated to religion could increase a person’s subsequent receptivity to religious or supernatural ideas. Conversely, encouraging intellectual discussion or even having people read unrelated material in a hard-to-read font could elicit scepticism about such things. The studies cited could not address how durable these effects are likely to be, so it is possible that such interventions might have only transient effects.

The quote is attributed to Martin Luther, 1569.

 The findings of the studies do provide evidence that religious and supernatural beliefs are associated with intuitive thinking and that scepticism about religion is associated with analytical thinking. However, it would be premature to conclude that such beliefs are best viewed in terms of a dichotomy in which intuitive and analytical thinking are by nature opposed to each other. Such a dichotomy seems to be implied by statements by Pennycook et al. that: “initial intuitions during problem-solving often pre-empt further analysis” (p. 336) and “An analytic cognitive style will typically involve a broader assessment of problem elements as well as an examination and critical evaluation of intuitions.” The task used to assess preference for intuitive or analytical thinking actually involves asking people to solve problems where there is an intuitively appealing but incorrect answer, so that to reach the correct answer the person must reject their initial intuition. The nature of the task itself therefore sets up a dichotomy in which intuition and reflection are incompatible. This may well be applicable much of the time but there is some intriguing evidence that the two modes of thought sometimes operate in a parallel rather than a conflicting manner. This parallel operation has been found to have implications of its own for supernatural beliefs.

The dual-process model originally proposed that the two modes are independent of each other and as a result although some people habitually prefer one mode over the other, some people actually prefer to use both, while some people have little preference for either. One study sorted people into four clusters based on their respective preferences for the two modes of thought and examined their patterns of belief (Wolfradt, Oubaid, Straube, Bischoff, & Mischo, 1999). The cluster who had high preferences for both intuitive and analytical thought (“complementary thinkers”) actually had the highest rates of paranormal belief of all four clusters and also scored higher on measures of magical thinking compared to the cluster with high analytical and low intuitive thinking (“rational thinkers”). Wolfradt et al. suggested that: “A simultaneous processing style leads potentially to a disinhibition of associations which fosters irrational thinking” (p. 828).

 The potentially complementary relationship between intuitive and analytical modes of thought seems to shed some light on religious beliefs among scientists. Scientists are vocationally committed to empiricism and therefore would be expected to be naturally high on analytical thinking. Scientists are generally expected to reject beliefs that are not based on evidence and surveys have found that the majority of scientists are not religious. However, there are a substantial minority of scientists who are religious (one study found as many as 40%) and this poses a question about why people who are committed to evidence-based propositions in their work would simultaneously accept faith-based beliefs in their private lives (MacPherson & Kelly, 2011). The MacPherson and Kelly study found that although scientists as a group were generally less religious than non-scientists, they also scored higher in creativity and magical thinking. Additionally, among these scientists, religious belief, creativity, and magical thinking were all positively correlated. This suggests that among scientists there is a subgroup that is religious, creative and accepting of unconventional views of reality. The authors suggested that religious and paranormal beliefs may be linked to creativity and that these may form part of a broader psychological dimension known as transliminality. Transliminality involves the crossing of psychological material into and out of awareness. People who are high in transliminality may feel more able to accommodate the apparent tension between rational and non-rational ideas. This notion seems similar to that of Wolfradt et al. who proposed that the “complementary” thinking style fosters loose associations that support magical thinking associated with paranormal beliefs.

Future research could examine what effects experimental manipulations of analytical thinking might have on complementary thinkers, such as religious scientists. It seems possible that in order to decrease the religious beliefs of a complementary thinker it would be necessary not only to strengthen their analytical thinking but to weaken their reliance on intuition. Such research might be of particular interest for example to those who are concerned about the increasing prominence of non-evidence based treatments such as alternative medicine in educational institutions.  

Follow me on Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter.

© Scott McGreal. Please do not reproduce without permission. Brief excerpts may be quoted as long as a link to the original article is provided. 

This article also appears on Psychology Today on my blog Unique - Like Everybody Else.

Other posts discussing the possibilities of priming
Opening the Mind: Where Skepticism and Superstition Meet 
Think Like a Man: Effects of Gender Priming on Cognition

Turning the Wheels of the MInd - Clockwise movements increase openness to experience

Are Sex And Religion Natural Enemies?

  

References

          Gervais, W. M., & Norenzayan, A. (2012). Analytic Thinking Promotes Religious Disbelief Science, 336 (6080), 493-496 DOI: 10.1126/science.1215647

MacPherson, J. S., & Kelly, S. W. (2011). Creativity and positive schizotypy influence the conflict between science and religion. Personality and Individual Differences, 50(4), 446-450. doi: 10.1016/j.paid.2010.11.002

           Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J. A., Seli, P., Koehler, D. J., & Fugelsang, J. A. (2012). Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief  Cognition, 123 (3), 335-346 DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.003

Shenhav, A., Rand, D., & Greene, J. (2011). Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God Journal of Experimental Psychology: General DOI: 10.1037/a0025391

Wolfradt, U., Oubaid, V., Straube, E. R., Bischoff, N., & Mischo, J. (1999). Thinking styles, schizotypal traits and anomalous experiences. Personality and Individual Differences, 27(5), 821-830. doi: 10.1016/s0191-8869(99)00031-8