There are two different ways to problem-solving and decision-making: the intuitive style (fast, requires less cognitive resources and effort, relies heavily on implicit assumptions) and the analytic style (involves effortful reasoning, is more time-consuming, and tends to assess more aspects of a problem).
Pennycook et al. (2012) wanted to find out if the propensity for a particular type of reasoning can be used to predict one’s religiosity. They tested 223 subjects on their cognitive style and religiosity (religious engagement, religious belief, and theistic belief). The tests were in the form of questionnaires.
They found that the more people were willing to do analytic reasoning, the less likely they were to believe in God and other supernatural phenomena (witchcraft, ghosts, etc.). And that is because, the authors argue, the people that are engaging in analytic reasoning do not accept as easily ideas without putting effort into scrutinizing them; if the notions submitted to analyses are found to violate natural laws, then they are rejected. On the other hand, intuitive reasoning is based, partly, on stereotypical assumptions that hinder the application of logical thinking and therefore the intuitive mind is more likely to accept supernatural explanations of the natural world. For example, here is one of the problems used to asses analytical thinking versus stereotypical thinking:
In a study 1000 people were tested. Among the participants there were 995 nurses and 5 doctors. Jake is a randomly chosen participant of this study. Jake is 34 years old. He lives in a beautiful home in a posh suburb. He is well spoken and very interested in politics. He invests a lot of time in his career. What is most likely? (a) Jake is a nurse. (b) Jake is a doctor.
Fig. 1 from Pennycook et al. (2012) depicting the relationship between the analytical thinking score (horizontal) and percentage of people that express a type of theistic belief (vertical). E.g. 55% of people that believe in a personal God scored 0 out of 3 at the analytical thinking test (first bar), whereas atheists were significantly more likely to answer all 3 questions correctly (last bar)
First thing that comes to mind, based on stereotypical beliefs about these professions, is that Jake is a doctor, but a simple calculation tells you that there is 99.5% chance for Jake to be a nurse. Answer a) denotes analytical thinking, answer b) denotes stereotypical thinking.
And yet that is not the most striking thing about the results, but that the perception of God changes with the score on analytical thinking (see Fig. 1): the better you scored at analytical thinking the less conformist and more abstract view you’d have about God. The authors replicated their results on 267 additional more people. The findings were still robust and independent of demographic data.
Reference: Pennycook, G., Cheyne, J. A., Seli, P., Koehler, D. J., & Fugelsang, J. A. (June 2012, Epub 4 Apr 2012.). Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief. Cognition, 123(3): 335-46. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.003. Article| PPT |full text PDF via Research Gate
The Science Portal 