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Heuristic and analytic differences to scientific and theological concepts between
religious and nonreligious individuals
Tom Murphy
thwmurph@indiana.edu
Indiana University
18 December 2014
Abstract
Two separate groups of distinct individuals were studied: those who affiliated themselves
with a religious way of life (group = religious) and those who do not (group = nonreligious).
Depending on their average score between two implicit attitude tests (IAT), each participant
receives a Bias score (roughly between -3 and +3) showing in which direction an individual is
biased towards (i.e. scientific bias or theological bias). This score was interpreted as a measure of
heuristic processing. Directly after taking both IATs, all participants also filled out a short Need
for Cognition (NFC) questionnaire which is meant to test higher order/analytic processing.
Statistical analysis shows that there was a significant difference in both Bias score between the
two groups (religious v nonreligious) as well as in NFC score. Taken together, these results seem
to suggest that there is some connection/relationship between level of religious bias/value with
higher order analysis and reasoning.

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Introduction Background
As a cognitive agent, we have evolved useful psychological mechanisms that we
constantly use in the presence of external information. In particular, whenever belief-
contradictory information presents itself to the agent, cognitive strategies for processing and
interpreting this information come into use and affect our analysis (and reaction) to said
information. Throughout recent years of psychological analysis, social observation, and religious
studies alike, a finding that seems to consistently pop up within this literature is the reasoning
differences and use of cognitive heuristics that early and late adolescents use when analyzing
favorable vs. unfavorable results against their system of belief. A study done by Klaczynski
(2000) found that adolescents with a belief-favoritism “made more implausibility claims on
unfavorable problems than on neutral and favorable problems” (Klaczynski, p 1357) that had
nothing to do with their belief system, indicating an in-group implausibility bias. In general,
Klaczynski concluded “that motivated scientific reasoning does not become less prevalent with
increasing age and that reasoning biases are particularly prevalent among adolescents with
narrow epistemic goals” (Klaczynski, p 1363).
Also prevalent within cognitive science literature is the theory of two cognitively distinct
processing systems: system 1 is implicit, heuristic, reflexive, automatic, and impulsive; whilst
system 2 is rational, controlled, analytic, and generally considered higher order cognition (for
more info, see Evans 2008). In many cases, Klaczynski’s study being one of them, findings
generally support this two-process hypothesis. Klaczynski’s results didn’t just find that two-
processing systems exist, however: his “findings support the two-process hypothesis that analytic
and heuristic processes co-develop” (Klaczynski, p 1362). I wanted to analyze this finding in

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more detail; does this dichotomy continue into adulthood (i.e. ages 18-24)? In particular, do
heuristic processes seem to correlate with higher analytic processes?
In the present study, my motives are purely psychological and I am interested in how the
faith system differs functionally, psychologically, and cognitively in the mind of the believer.
Within the boundaries of this experiment and the model it represents, I hypothesize a relationship
between implicit attitude test responses (heuristic processing) and Need for Cognition (NFC)
scores (analytic processing).
Methods
2.1 Materials
Subjects included in this study were all Indiana University students between 18-25 years
of age. Specifically within groups, there were 17 religious individuals and 10 nonreligious
individuals (n = 27), 11 of them being female. The participant pool of religious individuals were
members of IU’s Christian Student Fellowship (CSF) organization. Data results were collected
by visiting their campus house and having each participant sit and take the tests in the comfort of
their own home environment. Nonreligious individuals were various people chosen
pseudorandomly amongst people the experimenter knew personally (i.e. was chosen because
experimenter knew they identified as nonreligious) or people who happened to be around when
testing was taking place (volunteered to participate). Nonreligious individuals were specifically
asked beforehand if they considered themselves nonreligious; if they answered in an affirmative
manner, they were used and their data was collected. For religious participants only, during the
same time they were filling out the NFC questionnaire, the experimenter also had them fill out a

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Personal Value/Spirituality examination to validate the fact that they were indeed religious and
that they valued this belief. Before any data was actually collected, it was hypothesized that - if1
these individuals were actually fairly devout religious individuals - most (if not all) would score
30 on this Personal Value/Spirituality questionnaire. This threshold proved to be accurate,
because all religious participants scored 30 expect for one who scored 29. Also noteworthy is
the observation that all religious individuals - when told at the start of this Personal Value/
Spirituality examination to “write down their Spirituality/Religion” - wrote down some form of
Christianity, belief in a higher power, belief that Jesus is the son of God, or some various form of
similar religious affiliation.
To analyze heuristic processing, two separate implicit attitude tests (IAT) were designed.
Both were ran through the program GenericLab and the IATs were coded within text files to be
ran through GenericLab. The NFC questionnaire was the short version (18 questions) taken
online from Cacioppo et al.’s “The Efficient Assessment of Need for Cognition” (see Table 1). A
5-point scale was used: 1 = extremely uncharacteristic; 5 = extremely characteristic.
2.2 Procedures
Each subject participated in two separate IATs as well as the short version of the NFC
scale. To determine which IAT the subject would take first, a random finite number of either 1 or
2 was generated via ‘random.org’. Once the first IAT test was set up in GenericLab, the subject
would be handed the laptop the tests were located on and told to read the instructions of the tests.
Taken from the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Measures Package compiled by Ciarrochi and1
Bilich: http://integrativehealthpartners.org/downloads/ACTmeasures.pdf

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A quick practice demonstration was also shown/offered before the subject would officially begin
in order to make sure they fully understood what was being asked of them.
All stimuli used for the IATs were words visually displayed in the middle of the screen.
The IATs were designed in a similar manner to many earlier IAT models; there being four basic
categories: i) scientific concepts (e.g. ‘chemistry’, ‘psychology’, ‘evolution’, etc.), ii) theological
concepts (e.g. ‘prayer’, ‘bible’, ‘intelligent design’, etc.), iii) positive concepts (e.g. ‘good’,
‘honest’, ‘wisdom’, ‘truth’, etc.), and iv) negative concepts (e.g. ‘bad’, ‘dishonest’,
‘unsophisticated’, ‘corrupt’, etc.). IAT1 paired scientific concepts with negative concepts and
paired theological concepts with positive concepts, whilst IAT2 paired scientific concepts with
positive concepts and paired theological concepts with negative concepts. In IAT1, the subject
was instructed to press the ‘j’ key if the word is a scientific concept OR if the word is a negative
concept, but press the ‘f’ key if the word is a theological concept OR if the word is a positive
concept. The opposite was done in IAT2: that is, the subject was instructed to press the ‘j’ key if
the word is a scientific concept OR if the word is a positive concept, but press the ‘f’ key if the
word is a theological concept OR if the word is a negative concept. Once words were displayed,
they wouldn’t disappear until the subject responded. Feedback was also given to the participant
(displayed ‘Correct’ if the subject pressed the correct key given the task that was asked of them).
The response times for both IATs were recorded immediately after the subject was finished.
Directly after both IATs were completed, participants were asked to fill out the NFC
questionnaire. As Cacioppo et al. (1984) stated: “Need for cognition refers to an individual’s
tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive endeavors. Research on need for cognition
suggests that this characteristic is predictive of the manner in which people deal with tasks and

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social information” (Cacioppo et al., p 306). This scale was used because of its success in
measuring “tendencies to seek challenging intellectual experiences and to enjoy the pursuit of
knowledge” (Klaczynski 2000, p 1353) and usefulness in previous research (Klaczynski 2000,
Kardash et al. 1996). Before statistical analysis was performed, it was assumed that there would
be differences in response times (Bias score) between the two groups, but whether or not it
would be significant was still in question. Experimenters were also interested in seeing if there
would be some sort of correlation with the NFC scores. Our general hypothesis was that we
would find some sort of interesting relationship between implicit attitudes (Bias score) and NFC:
specifically, that those who are nonreligious are more likely to score higher on both the Bias
score as well as the NFC scale.
2.3 Data Acquisition and Analysis
Data was collected and input into SPSS, a statistical analysis software. The response
times for correct responses was averaged for each IAT; a Bias score was obtained by subtracting
[average IAT1 response time] - [average IAT2 response time]. A negative score would indicate a
bias towards theology, whilst a positive score indicates a bias towards science (range in data:
-2.22, +0.44). Each participants’ NFC score was also input into SPSS (range in data: -9, +33).
When comparing the differences in Bias score between the two groups, an independent samples
T-test was used because the means between two separate groups were being compared. When
analyzing Bias score with NFC score, a multivariate ANOVA was used to compare the means
between these two independent variables. When analyzing a possible correlation between Bias
score and NFC score, a new Bias score was calculated (multiplied all original Bias scores by 20)

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in order to sufficiently analyze a relationship (data range: -44.4,+19.6); a bivariate ANOVA was
ran to compare these two scores.
Results
The mean Bias score for the religious group was -0.37 whilst +0.15 for the nonreligious
group, although there was much more variance in the religious group (Std. Dev.: 0.72) than the
nonreligious group (Std. Dev.: 0.24). The mean NFC score for the religious group was +9.76
(variance of 83.57) whilst +20.6 (variance of 58.04) for the nonreligious group. As hypothesized,
there was a significant effect of group (religious v nonreligious) on Bias scores (F1,25 = 2.95, p =
0.038), with there being sufficiently more negative (theological) Bias scores in the religious
group than nonreligious group (see Figure 1). A surprising result was observed, however,
between the NFC scores between the two groups as there was an even more significant effect of
group on NFC scores (F1,25 = 9.94, p = 0.004). When taken through a correlational analysis,
however, a Pearson’s correlation coefficient of 0.016 informed us that there doesn’t appear to be
a strong relationship between Bias score and NFC score (see Figure 2).
Discussion
As a past believer myself, the results of this study are not particularly surprising. One of
the biggest issues religious individuals deal with is when scientific findings contradict personal
beliefs, causing an anxiety of cognitive dissonance. Science (and scientific findings) have always
been at battle with religious doctrine and their subsequent faith-based ideologies. These2
I cannot help but reference the famous stories of Copernicus, Galileo, along with numerous others who2
stood on the side of their scientific findings, even against religious persecution.

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conceptions and observations are what led to the experimental model of this study; when pairing
two seemingly neutral categories (i.e. scientific concepts and theological concepts) between two
psychologically different groups (religious v nonreligious), significant differences are definitely
something that should be on the discussion table.
Seeing significance in Bias scores was uplifting but not necessarily surprising; but when
significance was also found in NFC scores, it encouraged a longer pause for ponder. The fact that
we observe this significance tells us something about the way two different groups - purely based
on religious outlook and belief implementation - view the world around them and how these
differences in epistemological views also changes our conceptual view, the way we tackle
problems, and just generally the way we think. Although a correlation was not found between
Bias score and NFC score between the two groups, their paralleling slopes seem at least to hint to
a possible co-development; that is, an individual’s Bias score (via their performance on two
explicitly designed IATs) can somewhat predict their NFC score.
For future studies, I would like to see this experimental design focus more on the co-
development of analytic and heuristic processing between religious and nonreligious groups. I
would like to see studies expanding more on the relationship between the comprehension and
understanding of scientific information (analytic reasoning) with heuristic (implicit) processing
between these two groups.

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Table 1. Need for Cognition scale, short version; list of questions used.
Table 2. SPSS output of means (and
other statistics) of Bias score and NFC
score of both religious and
nonreligious individuals.

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Figure 1. Mean Bias scores between religious and nonreligious individuals.
Figure 2. Mean Bias and NFC score comparison between religious and nonreligious groups.
Although correlational analysis says otherwise, it is still intriguing that both Bias score and NFC score
rise at about the same rate for nonreligious individuals.

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References
Cacioppo, John T. et al. (1984). “The efficient assessment of Need for Cognition.” Journal of
Personality Assessment, Vol. 48(3): pp 306-7.
Evans, Jonathan St. B. T. (2008). “Dual-processing accounts of reasoning, judgment, and social
cognition.” Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 59: pp 255-78.
Kardash, C. M. Scholes, R. J. (1996). “Effects of preexisting beliefs, epistemological beliefs,
and need for cognition on interpretation of controversial issues.” Journal of Educational
Psychology, Vol. 88(2): pp 260-71.
Klaczynski, Paul A. (2000). “Motivated scientific reasoning bias, epistemological beliefs, and
theory polarization: a two-process approach to adolescent cognition.” Child
Development, Vol. 71(5): pp 1347-66.