The Implicit Associations Between Religious and Nonreligious Supernatural Constructs

ABSTRACT

The present studies furthered understanding of the implicit relationships between traditional religious (RS) and nonreligious supernatural (NRS) concepts. Moving beyond the study of explicit beliefs, we accounted for the distinctions within NRS concepts, applying recent developments in the understanding of the correspondence in beliefs in these phenomena.

Acknowledgments

Thanks go to James Frantz for assisting with the data collection on Study 1 and Dr. Mark Vincent for assisting with the data collection on Study 2.

Funding

This research was supported in part by the Bill and Sarah James Eminent Scholars Research Chair, held by the first author while at Centenary College of Louisiana.

Notes

¹ Our two composite measures of adherence to religious faith (i.e., the importance of private prayer and Bible study and the average of the importance of one’s faith across four aspects of life) could serve as measures of religious adherence. Although not direct measures of belief in religious phenomena, they do represent related constructs. In separate analyses, we regressed both measures of religious faith on MBS scores. Both analyses showed significant linear associations (ps < .02). Important to note, both the measure of importance of prayer and bible study (B = –.222, p < .001, ∆R² = .243) and the measure of the importance of one’s faith (B = –.181, p = .003, ∆R² = .192) showed significant quadratic effects beyond the linear associations. The nature of the curvilinear relationships was such that those who place a moderate importance on prayer and Bible study and those who place moderate importance on their faith across several aspects of life showed the greatest belief in NRS phenomena. Thus, using these two measures of adherence to religious beliefs, we replicated the curvilinear relationships of Baker and Draper.

² IAT task order was statistically significant for the S-R IAT effect, with those getting the association consistent version first (i.e., superstitions paired with religious stimuli) showing a significantly stronger effect than those getting the inconsistent version first. Subsequent analyses showed that task order did not interact with any of the individual differences measures.

³ Given the lack of statistical effects with these measures in both Studies 1 and 2, they will not be discussed further.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by the Bill and Sarah James Eminent Scholars Research Chair, held by the first author while at Centenary College of Louisiana.