Atheism and how it is perceived: Manipulation of, bias against and ways to reduce the bias
Engelsk titel: Atheism and how it is perceived: Manipulation of, bias against and ways to reduce the bias
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Författare:
Andersson, Gerhard
Email: gerhard.andersson@liu.se
Språk: Eng
Antal referenser: 39
Dokumenttyp:
Översikt
UI-nummer: 16095404
Sammanfattning
In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the cognitive foundations of religion and
experimental methods have been used to explain religious behaviours. However, in the world,
there are a substantial number of non-believers (atheists), and this has been a largely unknown
field for experimental and more basic research informed by cognitive science. This has now
changed and in this review, I cover three domains of study. First, studies in which belief in God
has been manipulated in the direction of showing less belief are reviewed. For example, it is
shown that analytical thinking reduces religious belief. Second, recent studies on cognitive bias
against atheists are covered showing that atheists are distrusted, elicit disgust and are viewed as
immoral both explicitly and implicitly. Third, I review studies in which prejudice against atheists
has been experimentally manipulated showing that it is possible to reduce bias against atheists.
I conclude the paper arguing that the bias against atheists need to be investigated in the
Scandinavian
countries