Hi all!
I'm new here, just wanted to introduce myself. I'm a grad student in psychology where I study religion and decision-making; sometimes I also study atheism. Looking forward to reading and joining discussions!
Hello, going to do your survey here as well?
Not that it concerns me since I'm a Brit!
K... And what would your leanings be?
Hello and welcome to HAF, atheist_researcher. So, are you studying how religion affects people's decisions? If so, that sounds like a field that could produce interesting results.
Anyway, here are some threads you might take a look at to familiarize yourself with this place:
Where did you get your username from? (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=5133.0)
10 Things About Yourself (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=4940.0)
Tell us A Bit About Where You're From (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8215.0)
Photography (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=7607.0)
Non-religious pet peeves (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=6917.0)
Pets...what do you have? (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=7.0)
How to tell your family you are an atheist (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=5111.0)
"Rules for Conducting a Discussion" by Dr. Mortimer J. Adler (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=5631.0)
. . . And of course, the Forum Rules (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=1522.0).
I hope you enjoy your time reading and posting here! :welcome:
Hello Atheist-researcher. Welcome. We're all looking fwd to knowing you and hope you're wanting to be friends with us as well as seeing us as a useful, group of subjects. What's the current theory on how religion affects decision-making?
Welcome to HAF
Welcome, atheist researcher! :wave hi:
What kind of decisions do you study exactly? How is decision-making tied in with religion and/or atheism? Because to me being an atheist isn't exactly a conscious choice, and I'm assuming those on the other side of the spectrum feel the same way.
Looking forward to some interesting discussions!
Greetings, atheist_researcher! I hope you'll find some useful material here, and also that you have a bit of fun too.
Quote from: atheist_researcher on October 28, 2016, 08:43:25 PMI'm a grad student in psychology...
I'd like to offer my sincerest condolences for your current situation. I spent way too much time as a health psych grad student.
Anyhow, welcome aboard, glad to have you here.
Hello, and thanks for a warm welcome!
A couple quick answers to questions:
-No I'm not going to post my survey here
-I'm not sure what you mean by "my leanings"
-Some general things about religion and decision making:
I think it's a fascinating area and there is quite a bit of research on how highly religious people are less effective at logical reasoning, higher IQs predict lower religiosity, and intuitive reasoning promotes religious belief. I hope to continue to add to this kind of research by studying things like the standards of evidence that religious and non-religious people use, confirmation bias, and how religion and science interact.
-Personally, I'm fascinated with problem solving, logical decision making, and how people search for information, like on the internet or in the news, and what are the qualities of 'convincing information.' I think this is especially important when educating people about science in general, but also when sharing information about evolution, climate change, vaccinations, polls, etc.
Anyways, I did spend some time browsing different forums (yes I was looking for places to post a survey but I was also looking for forums to browse for fun). I am enjoying life as a grad student but I don't have a lot of time for leisure. I have bookmarked this site, so I'll probably pop in and out from time to time.
I have to say, though, that the title "Happy atheist" and the intro page are a big draw for me, as I'm not too attracted to sites and forums that are very militant and focused on debating and arguing.
Anyways, thanks again for the welcome and cheers!
Ello old chum! Top for o' spot of a tea on the barley innet?
Quote from: Apathy on October 31, 2016, 07:24:49 AM
Ello old chum! Top for o' spot of a tea on the barley innet?
Dick Van Dyke would be proud of you! :grin:
@ atheist_researcher
Ah, so that is why you dropped out of The Thinking Atheist then? I agree there are some nasty types there, but every group has its goodies and baddies. I would have thought that a true researcher could filter out the aggression to estimate the basic "belief" pattern below. The very violence of attitude itself is, surely, worthy of comparison of the similar violence of attitude on some theist forums? Thus one could possibly remove some of the common factors of human nature and expose more of the differences?
It surprises me that any student avoids debate and discussion, long time since I was a student but, barring the head bangers, debate and discussion are so often the food of thought, the trigger of new ideas.
With regards to your "leanings", we get a lot of theists posing as researchers or authors who are basically looking for a way to evangelize, or even simply troll. Your use-name could mean "atheist-who-researches" or "one-who-researches-atheists". The latter is ambiguous.
Quote from: atheist_researcher on October 31, 2016, 02:55:34 AM
Hello, and thanks for a warm welcome!
-I'm not sure what you mean by "my leanings"
-Some general things about religion and decision making:
I think it's a fascinating area and there is quite a bit of research on how highly religious people are less effective at logical reasoning, higher IQs predict lower religiosity, and intuitive reasoning promotes religious belief.
Well that's a bit sobering. It was logical thinking that eventually saved me but only when for various reasons I was away from Christian influence for a while. Religion is very repressive but you don't realise it at he time and that is where your social life and friends are.
Quote from: Essie MayReligion is very repressive but you don't realise it at he time and that is where your social life and friends are.
Yes, I think that's behind a lot of it.
Quote from: atheist_researcher on October 31, 2016, 02:55:34 AM
intuitive reasoning promotes religious belief.
Can you support that by citing your sources please?
I will grant that intuition is usually considered not to be based on evidence, at least not consciously observed or perceived evidence. Personally I am not so sure, I am a great believer in the "hunch", the "gut feeling", that image, perspective, idea or whatever that seems to come out of the blue - and quite often seems obvious once it arrives. I see this as part of the "intuitive leap" to an answer or solution, seemingly bypassing the brain's reasoning centres.
But, surely, this is an unconscious assembling of evidence already in the mind, just not at the surface. Part of the famous "pattern seeking" ability. I could not count the number of times in my engineering career where I have come to an idea, or even a design, with no conscious stages between looking at a new problem and mentally visualising the solution.
Perhaps it is another case where the philosopher's definition is different from how a word is used in everyday speech. Personally, although I have been questioning the nature of religion since I was about 10yo (and getting in disfavour at Sunday school for doing so), I am happy to think that I have the faculty I recognise as "intuition".
Interesting:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/19/the-habits-of-highly-intu_n_4958778.html
but a bit "New Age" for me, I prefer a more dynamic intuition!
QuoteWith regards to your "leanings", we get a lot of theists posing as researchers or authors who are basically looking for a way to evangelize, or even simply troll. Your use-name could mean "atheist-who-researches" or "one-who-researches-atheists". The latter is ambiguous.
This. Although it appears to be the former.
I am curious about your research though... Wouldn't one simply research decision making? Does studying religion's influence on decision making not supply a bias right from the start?
Quote from: Gloucester on October 31, 2016, 01:00:10 PM
...
Interesting:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/19/the-habits-of-highly-intu_n_4958778.html
Yes, interesting... :chin:
Hello,
atheist_researcher, welcome. :computerwave:
Quote from: Pasta Chick on October 31, 2016, 01:48:05 PM
QuoteWith regards to your "leanings", we get a lot of theists posing as researchers or authors who are basically looking for a way to evangelize, or even simply troll. Your use-name could mean "atheist-who-researches" or "one-who-researches-atheists". The latter is ambiguous.
This. Although it appears to be the former.
I am curious about your research though... Wouldn't one simply research decision making? Does studying religion's influence on decision making not supply a bias right from the start?
Ah, ok. Well, I've just always identified as an atheist (once I realized there was such a thing). It's never been super important to me, but I've always been fascinated by religion, religious history, and the bible. I grew up Christian (Church of Christ) with strong interests in the sciences and realized my questions would never be answered by a preacher.
I admit: atheist_researcher is kind of a dumb name. My WoW characters have cooler names.
Decision making is more interesting when you find a group of people that reason very differently about problems and I think that, for religious people, the reasoning performance we see on simple logic problems bleeds out into other areas.
Some theorists have posited that there are these 'cognitive mechanisms' that are necessary to believe in gods (see Baumard & Boyer, below). Everyone has them (atheists included) but religious people are more likely to rely on them (or non-religious people are more likely to override them). Considering the fundamental nature of these mechanisms, we're really looking at how a certain range of cognitive abilities, endemic to religious belief, influences reasoning rather than just 'reasoning in an of itself' in the Kahneman-esque sense.
It's easy to think that, because I have an opinion (a hypothesis, really) that my research will be biased. It may also sound like the questions I ask are biased because I'm interested in, for example, how religion (or the cognitive mechanisms responsible for religion) interferes with proper reasoning. The bias really comes down to how I design my studies, not the questions I ask. What one usually means by "biased research" is "fake research" or "drawing incorrect conclusions" or something like that. I can't very well wish really hard that something were true- the data has to actually show it, and to get it published I have to have a reasonable study with reasonable conclusions, and it has to be replicable.
The fact of the matter is that we find consistent relationships between religion and reasoning ability (IQ) preference (intuitions) and the types of information that people seek out (religious people are less scientifically inclined). These types of findings are really consistent so it's not like it can really be biased.
Here's some experimental evidence you might find interesting:
Shenhav, A., Rand, D. G., & Greene, J. D. (2012). Divine intuition: cognitive style influences belief in God. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141(3), 423.
Gervais, W. M., & Norenzayan, A. (2012). Analytic thinking promotes religious disbelief. Science, 336(6080), 493-496.
Correlational:
Zuckerman, M., Silberman, J., & Hall, J. A. (2013). The relation between intelligence and religiosity a meta-analysis and some proposed explanations. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 1088868313497266.
And a theoretical paper:
Baumard, N., & Boyer, P. (2013). Explaining moral religions. Trends in cognitive sciences, 17(6), 272-280.
There's more, but just look on google scholar to see who's cited those papers. Or better yet, read them and see some of the older research they cite!
Quote from: Gloucester on October 31, 2016, 08:29:06 AM
@ atheist_researcher
It surprises me that any student avoids debate and discussion, long time since I was a student but, barring the head bangers, debate and discussion are so often the food of thought, the trigger of new ideas.
Also, some things are worth 'debating' and some just need actual evidence.
Also, I'm not here just to conduct research.
Quote from: atheist_researcher on October 31, 2016, 03:32:07 PM
I admit: atheist_researcher is kind of a dumb name. My WoW characters have cooler names.
Just a technical point: If you would prefer a "cooler" name, that can be arranged. PM me or my fellow admin
Tank, if you would like to do that.
Quote from: atheist_researcher on October 31, 2016, 03:32:07 PMThe fact of the matter is that we find consistent relationships between religion and reasoning ability (IQ) preference (intuitions) and the types of information that people seek out (religious people are less scientifically inclined). These types of findings are really consistent so it's not like it can really be biased.
I agree: it does seem that there is some sort of objectively discernible difference between the ways that non-believers and the deeply religious think and approach certain topics. We've had threads here about this research.
That's really interesting atheist_researcher :smilenod:
From my casual observations it seems that a subset of religiously inclined people are actually very intelligent and are able to do the kind of "mental gymnastics" very well, which enables validation of their beliefs in their minds. They're very good at justifying atrocities to themselves and deriving abstractions from the bible. While probably not the majority, among them are those who are scientifically inclined -- two prominent biologists com to mind: Kenneth Miller, a Catholic who speaks out against creationists and proponents of intelligent design and Francis Collins, part of the Human Genome Project.
How does that type of person fit in? Is their decision-making process more similar to the average believer, to the average atheist or somewhere in between?
Welcome! Nice to meet you...
Seems like you've already spurred an interesting discussion. Looking forward to more.
Quote from: atheist_researcher on October 31, 2016, 03:32:07 PMWell, I've just always identified as an atheist (once I realized there was such a thing). It's never been super important to me, but I've always been fascinated by religion, religious history, and the bible. I grew up Christian (Church of Christ) with strong interests in the sciences and realized my questions would never be answered by a preacher.
I admit: atheist_researcher is kind of a dumb name. My WoW characters have cooler names.
I grew up Roman Catholic, and drifted to Agnostic Theist. Similar interests in science and somewhat intrigued by religions.
BTW, if you've played WoW, you've probably killed me ;-)
JoeActor
Welcome, Researcher... your perspective will be interesting to read!