Gervais, Will M.; van Elk, Michiel; Xygalatas, Dimitris; McKay, Ryan T.; Aveyard, Mark; Buchtel, Emma E.; Dar-Nimrod, Ilan; Klocova, Eva Kundtova; Ramsay, Jonathan E.; Riekki, Tapani; Svedholm-Hakkinen, Annika M.; Bulbulia, Joseph
(2018)
Religious belief is a topic of longstanding interest to psychological science, but the psychology of religious disbelief is a relative newcomer. One prominently discussed model is analytic atheism, wherein cognitive reflection, as measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test, overrides religious intuitions and instruction. Consistent with this model, performance-based measures of cognitive reflection predict religious disbelief in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, & Democratic) samples. However, the generality of analytic atheism remains unknown. Drawing on a large global sample (N = 3461) from 13 religiously, demographically, and culturally diverse societies, we find that analytic atheism as usually assessed is in fact quite fickle cross-culturally, appearing robustly only in aggregate analyses and in three individual countries. The results provide additional evidence for culture's effects on core beliefs.