Faith found to reduce errors on psychological test

At least for one type of test, be­lief in God can help re­duce mis­takes and anx­i­e­ty, ac­cord­ing to new re­search that al­so shows dis­tinct brain ac­ti­vity pat­terns in be­liev­ers.

In two stud­ies led by Uni­ver­s­ity of To­ron­to psy­cholo­g­ist Mi­chael In­zlicht, par­ti­ci­pants per­formed a Stroop task, a well-known psy­chological test that as­s­eses cog­ni­tive con­trol. Mean­while, elec­trodes meas­ured brain ac­ti­vity in the test-takers.

Com­pared to non-be­liev­ers, In­zlicht found, re­li­gious par­ti­ci­pants showed sig­nif­i­cantly less ac­ti­vity in a part of the brain called the an­te­ri­or cin­gu­late cor­tex. This struc­ture is be­lieved to help mod­i­fy be­hav­ior by sig­nal­ing when at­ten­tion and con­trol are needed, usu­ally as a re­sult of some anx­i­e­ty-producing event like mak­ing a mis­take.

The stronger their re­li­gious zeal and faith, the less cell ac­ti­vity in that zone—and the few­er er­rors sub­jects made, In­zlicht and col­leagues re­ported. They de­tailed the find­ings in the cur­rent on­line is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Psy­cho­log­i­cal Sci­ence.

Source: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/090306_god