Religious belief quells uneasiness in life, right? Or that's the main reason why we assume people believe.
But, is this actually true?
A group of scientist took a look at a specific area of the brain for clues.
Researchers examined neural signals in a place in the brain linked to 'defensive responses to errors'--called the anterior cingulate cortex. Electrical signals rush through this part of the brain when you are presented with conflicting information: when you've made a mistake or when two facts don't make sense when taken together.
As you might expect, the neural signals (ERN's) decreased when a believer was consciously or unconsciously presented with religious stimulus. And, ERN's spiked when a non-believer was consciously or unconsciously presented with a religious stimulus. Non-believers experience conflict and cognitive dissonance with religious thoughts while believers brain's are flooded with gooey happy relaxing thoughts instead. Hippies.
So, maybe religion quells anxiety for some and not for others. But, what else quells a person's anxiety in life? Could non-believers have something in their life that reduces anxiety as much as religion for their counterparts? (And believers could be living with another source of stress related to the demands of their religious beliefs..)
Tom at Epiphenom points out
it's interesting to compare these results with another study earlier this year. This study found that priming with religious thoughts made people work longer to try to complete an impossible task - when the sensible thing to do was to abandon it as a lost cause. What's more, people primed with religion were actually more anxious afterwards, not less
So maybe the religion quells anxiety at first blush. But, after years and years of living out what it takes to be religious--how would believers compare to non-believers? That's a good question...
Inzlicht M, & Tullett AM (2010). Reflecting on God: Religious Primes Can Reduce Neurophysiological Response to Errors. Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS PMID: 20558751
