title: Religion and action control: Faith-specific modulation of the Simon effect but not Stop-Signal performance.
abstract: Previous findings suggest that religion has a specific impact on attentional processes. Here we show that religion also affects action control. Experiment 1 compared Dutch Calvinists and Dutch atheists, matched for age, sex, intelligence, education, and cultural and socio-economic background, and Experiment 2 compared Italian Catholics with matched Italian seculars. As expected, Calvinists showed a smaller and Catholics a larger Simon effect than nonbelievers, while performance of the groups was comparable in the Stop-Signal task. This pattern suggests that religions emphasizing individualism or collectivism affects action control in specific ways, presumably by inducing chronic biases towards a more "exclusive" or "inclusive" style of decision-making. Interestingly, there was no evidence that religious practice affects inhibitory skills.
authors.affiliation: Leiden University, Cognitive Psychology Unit & Leiden Institute for Brain and Cognition, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Bernhard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Hommel
authors.forename: Lorenza S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Colzato
authors.forename: Claudia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Scorolli
authors.forename: Anna M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Borghi
authors.forename: Wery P M
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: van den Wildenberg
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003469:Culture; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D012067:Religion