TY - JOUR
T1 - Do religiosity and spirituality differ in their relationship with crystallized intelligence? Evidence from the General Social Survey
AU - Dürlinger, Florian
AU - Götz, Thomas
AU - Pietschnig, Jakob
PY - 2024/7
Y1 - 2024/7
N2 - Negative associations of religiosity and intelligence are well established in psychological research. However, past studies have shown a substantial heterogeneity in reported effect strengths. Causes that may be able to explain the identified inconsistencies pertain to differing religiosity measurement modalities, participant ages, or possibly cohort effects due to changing societal values in terms of being religious. Moreover, little is known about intelligence associations with the religiosity-related yet distinct construct of spirituality. Here, we provide evidence for religiosity and crystallized intelligence, as well as spirituality and crystallized intelligence associations, in 14 cohorts from 1988 to 2022 (N = 35,093) in the General Social Survey data by means of primary data analyses and meta-analytical approaches. As expected, religiosity was non-trivially negatively associated (r = −0.13, p <.001), but spirituality showed no meaningful association with crystallized intelligence (r = 0.03, p <.001). Our results broadly generalized across age groups, cohorts, and analytical approaches, thus suggesting that religiosity and intelligence may possibly be functionally equivalent to a certain extent whilst spirituality represents a distinct construct that is not functionally equivalent.
AB - Negative associations of religiosity and intelligence are well established in psychological research. However, past studies have shown a substantial heterogeneity in reported effect strengths. Causes that may be able to explain the identified inconsistencies pertain to differing religiosity measurement modalities, participant ages, or possibly cohort effects due to changing societal values in terms of being religious. Moreover, little is known about intelligence associations with the religiosity-related yet distinct construct of spirituality. Here, we provide evidence for religiosity and crystallized intelligence, as well as spirituality and crystallized intelligence associations, in 14 cohorts from 1988 to 2022 (N = 35,093) in the General Social Survey data by means of primary data analyses and meta-analytical approaches. As expected, religiosity was non-trivially negatively associated (r = −0.13, p <.001), but spirituality showed no meaningful association with crystallized intelligence (r = 0.03, p <.001). Our results broadly generalized across age groups, cohorts, and analytical approaches, thus suggesting that religiosity and intelligence may possibly be functionally equivalent to a certain extent whilst spirituality represents a distinct construct that is not functionally equivalent.
KW - GSS
KW - intelligence
KW - religiosity
KW - spirituality
KW - time-trends
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85199645499&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/jintelligence12070065
DO - 10.3390/jintelligence12070065
M3 - Article
SN - 2079-3200
VL - 12
JO - Journal of Intelligence
JF - Journal of Intelligence
IS - 7
M1 - 65
ER -