The relationship of religiosity and intelligence

Various studies show that people who rely more on intuition tend to be more religious, while people with developed analytical, deductive and more rational thinking are less religious.

Although statistical studies show that the poorest countries tend to be more religious, experts suggest that the reason for this may be that religions in such countries perform more active social, moral, and cultural functions, like nationalism ^{[1] [2] [ 3]} . Religions in rich countries have lost a specific moral and spiritual function ^[4] .

Intellect is a quality of the psyche, which includes many related features, such as the ability to reason, plan, the ability to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to have the ability to speak and learn. Intellect can be defined more specifically. In some cases, the concept of intelligence may include such personality characteristics as creativity, individuality, character, erudition, or education. However, some psychologists prefer not to include these features in the definition of intelligence ^{[5] [6]} .

Other ways of assessing intelligence try to measure intelligence indirectly by analyzing the achievements in education of individuals or entire groups. However, such methods are not insured against the risks of other demographic factors, such as age, income, gender and cultural background, each of which can affect the level of education ^[5] .

Dissatisfaction with traditional IQ tests led to the development of alternative theories. In 1983, Howard Gardner proposed the theory of multiple intelligence , which expands the usual definition of intelligence, because the cognitive and intellectual abilities of an individual include all forms of mental qualities, and not just transparent standardized IQ tests. Gardner introduced such categories of intelligence as the logical, linguistic, spatial, musical, proprioceptive, naturalistic, within the personal and interpersonal category of intelligence ^[7] .

The term religiosity refers to the degree of religious behavior, faith, or spirituality. Measuring religiosity complicates the difficulty of defining what is meant by this term. Many studies have been conducted to study the various components of religiosity, and most studies have found some differences between religious beliefs, religious practice and spirituality.

Studies can measure religious practice by counting the attendance of religious services. It is possible to evaluate religious beliefs with the help of theological questions. Spirituality can also be measured by interviewing respondents about their sense of oneness with the divine or through detailed standardized evaluative measurements. When religiousness is measured, it is important to list which aspects of religiosity were investigated.

In 2008, an intelligence specialist, Helmut Nyborg, conducted a study on the degree of IQ dependence on religion and earnings using representative data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, based on intelligent tests of a representative sample of white American youth, which was also surveyed on religious beliefs. The results of Helmut's research were published in the scientific journal Intelligence , they showed that atheists scored an average of 1.95 IQ points more than agnostics, 3.82 points more liberal believers and 5.89 IQ points higher than dogmatically convinced ^{[ 8]} .

Nyborg also participated in the study with Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Ulster, Richard Lynn. The study compared religiosity with the average national IQ in 137 countries ^[9] . The study analyzed the problem from several points of view. First, after processing the data on 6,825 American adolescents, scientists found that atheists scored 6 points in their IQ tests more than non-atheists. Secondly, the authors of the study found a connection between religiosity and intellect on a national scale. In a sample of 137 countries, only in 23 (17%) countries, atheists accounted for more than 20% of the total population, and such countries virtually all showed the highest average IQ relative to other countries. Thus, scientists have found that the correlation between the level of atheism and the level of intelligence of the country reaches 0.60. This correlation is estimated as “extremely statistically significant” ^[9] .

Professor Gordon Lynch, director of the Center for Religion and Contemporary Society at Briquebeck College in London, expressed concern that the study did not take into account a whole range of social, economic and historical factors, each of which, as was shown, interacts in different ways with both religion and and with IQ ^[10] . For example, Gallup's research revealed that the poorest countries in the world are equally more religious, most likely due to the more functional role of religion in such countries ^{[2] [3]} .

Commenting on some of the above-mentioned research in The Daily Telegraph , Lynn said, “Why do so few scientists believe in God in relation to the general population? I believe that the matter is in IQ. Scientists have a higher IQ than the general population. Studies of public opinion polls show that people with higher IQs, as a rule, do not believe in God ” ^[11] . In a study published in the journal Social Psychology Quarterly for March 2010, Lynn also said that "atheism correlates with a higher level of intelligence" ^[12] .

In 2013, Professor Myron Zuckerman and Jordan Zilberman of the University of Rochester, as well as Judith Hall of the Northeastern University of the USA, conducted the first large-scale systematic meta-analysis of 63 studies performed from 1928 to 2012. The purpose of the meta-analysis was to summarize the heterogeneous research and verify the objectivity of these works. Of the 63 studies, 53 showed a negative correlation between developed intelligence and religiosity, and a positive correlation was only ten. Significant negative correlations were identified in 35 papers, and significant positive corrections were revealed only in two ^{[13] [14] [15]} . A meta-analysis revealed a negative correlation with a coefficient of −0.24 and a 95% confidence interval from −0.20 to −0.25 between high IQ and religiosity ^[13] .

• Religion and society