Priming religion helps us resist temptation

Priming religion helps us resist temptation

Check out Jonah Lehrer’s Wall Street Journal writeup of Kevin Rounding, Albert Lee and others’ awesome new paper in Psychological Science on how priming religion increases self-regulation and enables people to cope with temptation. Here’s the abstract of the paper: Researchers have proposed that the emergence of religion was a cultural adaptation necessary for promoting self-control. Self-control, in turn, may serve as a...

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‘Analytical’ thinking undermines religious belief

‘Analytical’ thinking undermines religious belief

Check out collaborators Will Gervais and Ara Norenzayan’s great new paper in Science on how priming ‘analytical’ modes of thinking undermines religious belief. You can download the full paper here, but here’s the abstract: Scientific interest in the cognitive underpinnings of religious belief has grown in recent years. However, to date, little experimental research has focused on the cognitive processes that may promote...

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