Religious People really are more Dogmatic and Conservative

[salvorhardin]

Over at the blog Epiphenom, Tom Rees describes recent research linking inflexible patterns of thinking with personal religious convictions. And, as Tom also points out, there is growing body of research about the mental inflexibility of political conservatives.

Tom writes, "it is truly remarkable that both religiosity and right-wing ideology can be predicted solely on the basis of an inability to cope with randomness."

Here's another fresh piece of research into this mental inflexibility that is behind both strongly religious and strongly conservative stances. In a new issue of Current Psychology, there is an article on "Examination of the Relationship between Perfectionism and Religiosity as Mediated by Psychological Inflexibility" by Jesse M. Crosby, Scott C. Bates and Michael P. Twohig. They see the same thing: Psychological inflexibility and inability to deal with change correlate well with both religiosity and perfectionism.

The correlation with mental inflexibility accounts for the way that very religious people just love that inner feeling of absolute certainty. The correlation with perfectionism is especially interesting. It accounts for the way that religious people feel free to impose high standards on everyone in addition to themselves, whereas less religion correlates with tolerance for diversity. It also links up with the heightened racism in very religious people.

More: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/entry/religious_people_really_are_more_dogmatic_and_conservative/

Let the rationalization games begin!

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I don't know if you can generalize like that.

I know a few Methodists. They're religious and very liberal and progressive. They embrace the social Jesus, the one who cares for the poor, the despised, the downtrodden, the sick, the unfortunates. They are the polar opposites of the Calvinist attitude of God hates the Poor because they're lazy.

[salvorhardin]

2. I don't think you can either

I think there's something else going on here, and it doesn't just apply to conservatives and the religious. In short, I think you'll find anybody who has spent a significant amount of time studying, being indoctrinated or learning an activity will become mentally inflexible. It has to do with brain plasticity decreasing as we age because more and more neurons in the neocortex are invested in supporting the existing latticework of memories, beliefs and skills.

[Curmudgeoness]

3. I don't know. I am pretty inflexible in my beliefs anymore.

And I am an atheist. The more I live, the more I read, the more I see of this world, the more I have opinions that are less flexible than they were years ago. Is it age? Is it intellect? Is it awareness? I don't know, but I know that I am less likely to be open to conservative ideas than I was before.

Hence, my "DU name".

[Thats my opinion]

4. Absolute certainty

You bet. We see it right here in R/T--but not just from the religious.

[dmallind]

8. really? I don't recall any atheist answering "nothing whatsoever"

to the question "what could prove to you that a specific god exists?"

I have never seen a single believer willing to say what would make them reject their belief in this life. So where is the inflexibility?

FWIW my own example is a simple Elijah variant. Double blind coded bowling balls in an unknown secure location monitored by cameras and weight sensors. Have all devoted followers pray to their god to levitate his/her coded ball (being a god, double-blind is easy-peasy) and just that one ball.

The ball that levitates is the god I would accept. Some atheists would need more personal individualized proof, but that would work for me once thoroughly monitored and investigated. Can you so easily supplu an answer for your own flexibility? If so please do. If not, why not?

[kwassa]

5. There are many political conservatives who are completely unreligious

and the term "religiosity" is open to very wide interpretation.

Closed-minded and inflexible people appear in many different belief systems, religious or not.

[provis99]

7. I think you hit on the key point.

Religiosity is too vague a concept to define and operationalize.

[struggle4progress]

6. From the link: "... Kramer and Bressan's ideas are pretty speculative ..."

Psychology is one of those sciences where lots of woo-woo can be found