Previous findings suggest that religion has a specific impact on attentional processes. Here we show that religion also affects action control. Experiment 1 compared Dutch Calvinists and Dutch atheists, matched for age, sex, intelligence, education, and cultural and socio-economic background, and Experiment 2 compared Italian Catholics with matched Italian seculars. As expected, Calvinists showed a smaller and Catholics a larger Simon effect than nonbelievers, while performance of the groups was comparable in the Stop-Signal task. This pattern suggests that religions emphasizing individualism or collectivism affects action control in specific ways, presumably by inducing chronic biases towards a more "exclusive" or "inclusive" style of decision-making. Interestingly, there was no evidence that religious practice affects inhibitory skills.
Hommel B., Colzato L., Scorolli C., Borghi A.M., van den Wildenberg L.P. (2011). Religion and action control: Faith-specific modulation of the Simon effect but not Stop-Signal performance. COGNITION, 120, 177-185 [10.1016/j.cognition.2011.04.003].
Religion and action control: Faith-specific modulation of the Simon effect but not Stop-Signal performance
SCOROLLI, CLAUDIA;BORGHI, ANNA MARIA;
2011
Abstract
Previous findings suggest that religion has a specific impact on attentional processes. Here we show that religion also affects action control. Experiment 1 compared Dutch Calvinists and Dutch atheists, matched for age, sex, intelligence, education, and cultural and socio-economic background, and Experiment 2 compared Italian Catholics with matched Italian seculars. As expected, Calvinists showed a smaller and Catholics a larger Simon effect than nonbelievers, while performance of the groups was comparable in the Stop-Signal task. This pattern suggests that religions emphasizing individualism or collectivism affects action control in specific ways, presumably by inducing chronic biases towards a more "exclusive" or "inclusive" style of decision-making. Interestingly, there was no evidence that religious practice affects inhibitory skills.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
