Reflective thought, religious belief, and the social foundations hypothesis

The past five years have seen a growing interest in the relationship between cognitive styles and religious belief. At the heart of this research lies a consistently positive association between reflective thought and religious disbelief. Numerous correlational studies and even a few experimental priming studies support this relationship, but it is not uncontested. Beyond empirical disputes or adjustments to this association, however, a key challenge is to explain why this relationship holds. In this chapter, we will review the documented associations between religious belief and cognitive style along with the most common interpretations of these relationships. From there, we will explore open questions and present a novel interpretation: the social foundations hypothesis.