Religious actions speak louder than words: exposure to credibility-enhancing displays predicts theism

ABSTRACT

One of the central aims of the cognitive science of religion (CSR) is to explain why supernatural agent beliefs are so widespread. A related but distinct aim is to explain why some individuals hold supernatural agent beliefs but others do not. Here, we aim to provide an initial test of the power of exposure to what Henrich calls “credibility-enhancing displays” (or “CREDs”) in determining whether or not an individual holds explicit supernatural agent beliefs. We present evidence from two studies of Americans suggesting that exposure to CREDs, as measured by a scale we developed and validated, predicts current theism vs. non-theism, certainty of God's existence/non-existence, and religiosity while controlling for overall religious socialization. These results are among the first to empirically support the theorized significance of CREDs for the acquisition of supernatural agent beliefs.

KEYWORDS:

• Atheism
• cognitive science of religion
• credibility-enhancing displays
• non-theism
• religious emphasis
• religious socialization
• theism

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Richard Sosis, Aiyana Willard, and three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interests with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Notes

1. Two hundred and seventeen participants responded to the survey, but one participant's survey responses included numerous missing cases. Consequently, we dropped this participant's data, leaving 216 participant responses in the dataset.

2. Our sample contained more non-religious individuals (46%) than would be expected in a random sample of Americans. A 2015 Pew survey indicates that only 22.8% of Americans are unaffiliated (Smith et al., 2015). We suspect this difference may be attributable to two factors. The first is the age of participants in our samples (Study 1: mean age = 37.3 years; SD = 13.7; Study 2: mean age = 36.1 years; SD = 13.1). The recent Pew survey indicates that Millennials (birth years 1981–1996) are especially likely to be unaffiliated (34% for Older Millennials and 36% for Younger Millennials) (Smith et al., 2015). The second factor is likely the higher levels of education among users of Amazon's Mechanical Turk (Paolacci et al., 2010), as religious disaffiliation is associated with educational attainment in the United States (Beit-Hallahmi, 2007).

3. Our CREDs scale focuses on displays by caregivers, as a significant body of evidence in both the psychology and sociology of religion (e.g., Cornwall, 1989; Dudley, 1978; 1999; Hood et al., 2009; Hunsberger, 1980, 1983; Ozorak, 1989) points to the primary importance of parents in religious socialization and the lesser importance of other social models. Further research, however, should investigate potential effects of CREDs and CRUDs (credibility-undermining displays) performed by peers and religious paragons.

4. While verbal expressions of religious belief appear to have limited efficacy in the absence of CREDs, the efficacy of CREDs in the absence of verbal expressions of belief is an open question. For an action to count as a CRED, by definition, it has to be linked in the mind of an observer with a previous verbal statement. Consequently, if there have been no verbal statements of the existence of supernatural agents, then no action can count as a CRED for a belief in the existence of a supernatural agent. However, religious traditions in a variety of contexts, such as Buddhism and Shinto in Japan (Reader, 1991; Reader & Tanabe, 1998), involve practices (e.g., offerings to ancestors and kami) that would count as CREDs for beliefs in supernatural agents, yet do not emphasize as particularly important either beliefs (e.g., in the existence of the ancestors or the kami) or religious identifications (e.g., as either Buddhist or Shinto). The effects of CREDs on the beliefs, practices, and identities of cultural learners in such environments remain to be explored.

Additional information

Funding

The work of both authors on this article was supported by a Large Grant from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council entitled “Ritual, Community, and Conflict” [grant number REF RES-060-25-0085] and an award from the John Templeton Foundation entitled “Religion's Impact on Human Life” [grant number #37624]. Ideas expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of these granting agencies.