Religious believers less likely to notice their mistakes

[normanchateau]

"'The more they believe, the less brain activity we see in response to their own errors,' said U of T Psychologist Michael Inzlicht. In some ways, he added, 'that's a good thing. But on the other side, we need to know when we're making a mistake. If we don't, we may make the same mistake again.'"

Hmm, so religious believers may not be willing or able to recognize when they make a mistake, let alone correct it. Wow, that could really be a problem if any of them were to end up, say, running a country or something. Thankfully, that could never happen.

http://www.xtra.ca/public/National/Religio...study-6496.aspx

[Michael Hardner]

These types of studies are pointless...

Example:

A recent study from the University of Toronto and York University showed that religious believers exhibit lower levels of stress and anxiety than those who consider themselves non-believers. The result was that the believers performed better on cognitive tests.

This is a cultural anomaly. Knowing anything about a group isn't helpful unless someone knows the causes. It gives people free reign to make generalizations, which aren't helpful.

And the article doesn't describe the methodology of the study, so we don't know how they selected subjects, where they were selected from... etc.

[WIP]

These types of studies are pointless...

Example:

This is a cultural anomaly. Knowing anything about a group isn't helpful unless someone knows the causes. It gives people free reign to make generalizations, which aren't helpful.

And the article doesn't describe the methodology of the study, so we don't know how they selected subjects, where they were selected from... etc.

I don't know how good the evidence is, but those two studies are not necessarily contradictory. Organized religions compete for adherents by offering a sense of community to people who may have moved far away from other family members and live in poorly designed suburban neighbourhoods that make it difficult to have any real sense of community. Especially these new megachurches have identified the services they need to provide, and many divide their church flock into smaller intimate groups to encourage real personal interactions. So, it shouldn't come as a surprise that many people find the church experience helpful.....now if they could unload harmful and destructive dogmas they'd be perfect!

The previous study that claims more religious people are more certain of their beliefs and resistant to re-evaluating them seems to match my own experiences with how the fundamentalists often turn angry and hostile to information that doesn't fit into their own worldview. Fundamentalism doesn't leave any gaps of uncertainty -- people are given reasons why the world exists, where they fit in to the drama and what will happen in the future. Some people like having no gaps where they are unsure about big questions in life, other people like me felt stifled by fundamentalism's rigidly structured set of beliefs, that leave little or no room for personal interpretation.

[tango]

These types of studies are pointless...

Example:

This is a cultural anomaly. Knowing anything about a group isn't helpful unless someone knows the causes. It gives people free reign to make generalizations, which aren't helpful.

And the article doesn't describe the methodology of the study, so we don't know how they selected subjects, where they were selected from... etc.

It's the same article, MH.

Less stressed about performance and about errors.

Suggests faith leads one to leave one's fate in the hands of God, perhaps?

I must say it strikes me in light of this thread:

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index....c=13947&hl=

as we have found the church people notoriously unwilling, resistant even to the truth of the church's complicity.

[tango]

These types of studies are pointless...

Example:

This is a cultural anomaly. Knowing anything about a group isn't helpful unless someone knows the causes. It gives people free reign to make generalizations, which aren't helpful.

And the article doesn't describe the methodology of the study, so we don't know how they selected subjects, where they were selected from... etc.

Here's the original report:

http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~inzlicht/rese...ash,%202009.pdf

[cybercoma]

I think mistakes are less likely to notice their religious believers - What I'm saying is that the mistake is a creation of the believer and can only be the observed, never the observer - All the reverence in the world by the believers of the mistake is never going to turn that mistake into an observer... [/Oleg]