Analytic Atheism in Japan: Examining the Association Between Analytic Thinking and Religious Beliefs
By: Tatsunori Ishii and Katsumi Watanabe
References
- Browne, M, Pennycook, G, Goodwin, B and McHenry, M. 2014. ‘Reflective minds and open hearts: Cognitive style and personality predict religiosity and spiritual thinking in a community sample’. European Journal of Social Psychology, 44(7): 736–742. DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.2059
- Byrd, N. 2023. ‘Great minds do not think alike: Philosophers’ views predicted by reflection, education, personality, and other demographic differences’. Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 14: 647–684. DOI: 10.1007/s13164-022-00628-y
- Byrd, N. 2025. ‘A two-factor explication of “reflection”: Unifying, making sense of, and guiding the philosophy and science of reflective reasoning’. Res Philosophica, 102(3): 373–392. DOI: 10.5840/resphilosophica2711
- Byrd, N, Stich, S and Sytsma, J. 2025. ‘Analytic atheism and analytic apostasy across cultures’. Religious Studies, 61(S1): S65–S89. DOI: 10.1017/S0034412525000198
- Camerer, CF, Dreber, A, Holzmeister, F, Ho, T-H, Huber, J, Johannesson, M, Kirchler, M, Nave, G, Nosek, BA, Pfeiffer, T, Altmejd, A, Buttrick, N, Chan, T, Chen, Y, Forsell, E, Gampa, A, Heikensten, E, Hummer, L, Imai, T, … Wu, H. 2018. Evaluating the replicability of social science experiments in Nature and Science between 2010 and 2015. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(9): 637–644. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-018-0399-z
- Champely, S. 2020. pwr: Basic functions for power analysis (R package version 1.3-0).
https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=pwr . - Davis, MH. 1983. ‘Measuring individual differences in empathy: Evidence for a multidimensional approach’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44(1): 113–126. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.44.1.113
- Evans, JSBT and Stanovich, KE. 2013. ‘Dual-process theories of higher cognition: Advancing the debate’. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(3): 223–241. DOI: 10.1177/1745691612460685
- Frederick, S. 2005. Cognitive reflection and decision making. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 19(4): 25–42. DOI: 10.1257/089533005775196732
- Gebauer, JE, Sedikides, C, Schönbrodt, FD, Bleidorn, W, Rentfrow, PJ, Potter, J and Gosling, SD. 2017. ‘The religiosity as social value hypothesis: A multi-method replication and extension across 65 countries and three levels of spatial aggregation’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3): e18–e39. DOI: 10.1037/pspp0000104
- Gervais, WM and Najle, MB. 2015. ‘Learned faith: The influences of evolved cultural learning mechanisms on belief in gods’. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 7(4): 327–335. DOI: 10.1037/rel0000044
- Gervais, WM, Najle, MB and Caluori, N. 2021. The origins of religious disbelief: A dual inheritance approach. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 12(7): 1369–1379. DOI: 10.1177/1948550621994001
- Gervais, WM and Norenzayan, A. 2012. ‘Analytic thinking promotes religious disbelief’. Science, 336(6080): 493–496. DOI: 10.1126/science.1215647
- Gervais, WM and Norenzayan, A. 2018. Analytic atheism revisited. Nature Human Behaviour, 2(9): 609–609. DOI: 10.1038/s41562-018-0426-0
- Gervais, WM, van Elk, M, Xygalatas, D, McKay, RT, Aveyard, M, Buchtel, EE, Dar-Nimrod, I, Klocová, EK, Ramsay, JE, Riekki, T, Svedholm-Häkkinen, AM and Bulbulia, J. 2018. ‘Analytic atheism: A cross-culturally weak and fickle phenomenon?’ Judgment and Decision Making, 13(3): 268–274. DOI: 10.1017/s1930297500007701
- Ghasemi, O, Yilmaz, O, Isler, O, Terry, J and Ross, RM. 2025. ‘Reflective thinking predicts disbelief in God across 19 countries’. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 32(5): 2220–2229. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-025-02691-9
- Harada, Y, Harada, E and Suto, S. 2018. Examination of Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT): Homogeneity of questions, order effects, and effects of instruction. Tsukuba Psychological Research, 56: 27–34.
https://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/120006533352 - Henrich, J. 2009. ‘The evolution of costly displays, cooperation and religion: Credibility enhancing displays and their implications for cultural evolution’. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30(4): 244–260. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005
- Himichi, T, Osanai, H, Goto, T, Fujita, H, Kawamura, Y, Davis, MH and Nomura, M. 2017. ‘Development of a Japanese version of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index’. Japanese Journal of Psychology, 88(1): 61–71. DOI: 10.4992/jjpsy.88.15218
- Ishii, T and Watanabe, K. 2021. ‘Caring about you: The motivational component of mentalizing, not the mental state attribution component, predicts religious belief in Japan’. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 11(4): 361–370. DOI: 10.1080/2153599x.2021.1939767
- Ishii, T and Watanabe, K. 2023. ‘Do empathetic people have strong religious beliefs? Survey studies with large Japanese samples’. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 33(1): 1–18. DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2022.2057059
- Ishii, T and Watanabe, K. 2024. ‘Cultural transmission and religious belief: An extended replication of Gervais and Najle (2015) using data from the International Social Survey Programme’. PLOS ONE, 19(6):
e0305635 . DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0305635 - Jack, AI, Friedman, JP, Boyatzis, RE and Taylor, SN. 2016. ‘Why do you believe in God? Relationships between religious belief, analytic thinking, mentalizing and moral concern’. PLoS ONE, 11(3):
e0149989 . DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0149989 - Jong, J, Bluemke, M and Halberstadt, J. 2013. ‘Fear of death and supernatural beliefs: Developing a new Supernatural Belief Scale to test the relationship’. European Journal of Personality, 27(5): 495–506. DOI: 10.1002/per.1898
- Jong, J, Halberstadt, J, Bluemke, M, Kavanagh, C and Jackson, C. 2019. ‘Death anxiety, exposure to death, mortuary preferences, and religiosity in five countries’. Scientific Data, 6(1): 154. DOI: 10.1038/s41597-019-0163-x
- Kavanagh, CM and Jong, J. 2020. ‘Is Japan religious?’ Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 14(1): 152–180. DOI: 10.1558/jsrnc.39187
- Kraft-Todd, GT, Bollinger, B, Gillingham, K, Lamp, S and Rand, DG. 2018. ‘Credibility-enhancing displays promote the provision of non-normative public goods’. Nature, 563: 245–248. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0647-4
- Lanman, JA and Buhrmester, MD. 2017. ‘Religious actions speak louder than words: exposure to credibility-enhancing displays predicts theism’. Religion, Brain & Behavior, 7(1): 3–16. DOI: 10.1080/2153599x.2015.1117011
- Łowicki, P and Zajenkowski, M. 2019. ‘Empathy and exposure to credible religious acts during childhood independently predict religiosity’. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 30(2): 1–14. DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2019.1672486
- Łowicki, P, Zajenkowski, M and Van Cappellen, P. 2020. ‘It’s the heart that matters: The relationships among cognitive mentalizing ability, emotional empathy, and religiosity’. Personality and Individual Differences, 161: 109976. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2020.109976
- McElreath, R. 2020. Statistical rethinking: A Bayesian course with examples in R and Stan (2nd ed.). Chapman & Hall/CRC Press.
- Norenzayan, A and Gervais, WM. 2013. ‘The origins of religious disbelief’. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 17(1): 20–25. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2012.11.006
- Pennycook, G, Cheyne, JA, Barr, N, Koehler, DJ and Fugelsang, JA. 2014. ‘The role of analytic thinking in moral judgements and values’. Thinking & Reasoning, 20(2): 188–214. DOI: 10.1080/13546783.2013.865000
- Pennycook, G, Cheyne, JA, Koehler, DJ and Fugelsang, JA. 2013. ‘Belief bias during reasoning among religious believers and skeptics’. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 20(4): 806–811. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-013-0394-3
- Pennycook, G, Cheyne, JA, Seli, P, Koehler, DJ and Fugelsang, JA. 2012. ‘Analytic cognitive style predicts religious and paranormal belief’. Cognition, 123(3): 335–346. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2012.03.003
- Pennycook, G, Ross, RM, Koehler, DJ and Fugelsang, JA. 2016. ‘Atheists and agnostics are more reflective than religious believers: Four empirical studies and a meta-analysis’. PLoS ONE, 11(4):
e0153039 . DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0153039 - Piazza, J and Sousa, P. 2014. ‘Religiosity, political orientation, and consequentialist moral thinking’. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5(3): 334–342. DOI: 10.1177/1948550613492826
- R Core Team. 2024. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
https://www.R-project.org/ . - Razmyar, S and Reeve, CL. 2013. ‘Individual differences in religiosity as a function of cognitive ability and cognitive style’. Intelligence, 41(5): 667–673. DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2013.09.003
- Sanchez, C, Sundermeier, B, Gray, K and Calin-Jageman, RJ. 2017. ‘Direct replication of Gervais & Norenzayan (2012): No evidence that analytic thinking decreases religious belief’. PLoS ONE, 12(2):
e0172636 . DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0172636 - Shenhav, A, Rand, DG and Greene, JD. 2012. ‘Divine intuition: Cognitive style influences belief in God’. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 141(3): 423–428. DOI: 10.1037/a0025391
- Stagnaro, MN and Pennycook, G. 2025. ‘On the role of analytic thinking in religious belief change: Evidence from over 50,000 participants in 16 countries’. Cognition, 254: 105989. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105989
- Stagnaro, MN, Ross, RM, Pennycook, G and Rand, DG. 2019. Cross-cultural support for a link between analytic thinking and disbelief in God: Evidence from India and the United Kingdom. Judgment and Decision Making, 14(2): 179–186. DOI: 10.1017/s1930297500003417
- Toplak, ME, West, RF and Stanovich, KE. 2014. ‘Assessing miserly information processing: An expansion of the Cognitive Reflection Test’. Thinking & Reasoning, 20(2): 147–168. DOI: 10.1080/13546783.2013.844729
- Vonk, J and Pitzen, J. 2017. ‘Believing in other minds: Accurate mentalizing does not predict religiosity’. Personality and Individual Differences, 115(1): 70–76. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2016.06.008
- Weiss, A, Dorrough, AR and Schmitz, L. 2021. ‘Analytic atheism in a low-religiosity culture: Examining the relationship between analytic thinking and religious belief in Germany’. Personality and Individual Differences, 178: 110854. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2021.110854
- Yilmaz, O, Karadöller, DZ and Sofuoglu, G. 2016. ‘Analytic thinking, religion, and prejudice: An experimental test of the dual-process model of mind’. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 26(4): 360–369. DOI: 10.1080/10508619.2016.1151117
- Yonker, JE, Edman, LRO, Cresswell, J and Barrett, JL. 2016. ‘Primed analytic thought and religiosity: The importance of individual characteristics’. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 8(4): 298–308. DOI: 10.1037/rel0000095
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/snr.229 | Journal eISSN: 2053-6712
Language: English
Page range: 9 - 9
Submitted on: Mar 19, 2025
Accepted on: Dec 9, 2025
Published on: May 26, 2026
Published by: Ubiquity Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 1 issue per year
© 2026 Tatsunori Ishii, Katsumi Watanabe, published by Ubiquity Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.