Diverse Cognitive Profiles of Religious Believers and Nonbelievers

ABSTRACT

The factors that make people religious or atheistic are currently much debated, and empirical evidence is limited. Further, the possibility that both religious believers and nonbelievers comprise diverse subtypes with different characteristics has seldom been considered. In this study, characteristics of religious believers (N = 984) and nonbelievers (N = 1,000) were analyzed with latent class analyses. These analyses identified five religious subgroups and five nonbeliever subgroups that differed in analytical thinking, empathizing, mechanistic cognition (i.e., systemizing), and autistic and schizotypal traits. The results highlight the strengths and limitations of current theoretical arguments about religious beliefs.

Acknowledgments

We thank Annika Svedholm, Anna Aspelund, and Tapani Riekki for feedback on a previous draft of this article.

Funding

This study was supported by the Research Funds of the Academy of Finland (265518).

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Research Funds of the Academy of Finland (265518).