Open-Minded Religiosity: Investigating the Link Between Religious Commitment and Thinking Style

Author

Carl W. Sallee, Seattle Pacific UniversityFollow

Date of Award

Spring 6-3-2016

Document Type

Honors Project

University Scholars Director

Dr. Jeff Keuss

First Advisor/Committee Member

Dr. Thomas Carpenter

Second Advisor/Committee Member

Dr. Paul Kim

Keywords

Religiosity, cognitive style, ACT, contextualism, religious commitment, open-minded

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between religious commitment and thinking styles. Participants (n = 195) completed self-report measures of religious commitment, contextualism, Authoritarianism-Conservatism-Traditionalism (ACT - conceptualized as social attitudes/beliefs), and Open-Minded Cognition (OMC - conceptualized as a cognitive style). A marginally significant direct link was observed. Furthermore, when controlling for Contextualism, the strength of the negative link between SRF and OMC increased non-significantly. When controlling for ACT, mediation analysis revealed that the relationship between SRF and OMC was more indirect (via shared variance with ACT) than direct. Moderation analyses did not reveal significant results. Results tentatively suggest a negative relationship exists between strength of religious faith and open-minded cognition, but this relationship is better explained by a confounding effect of ACT and not religiosity itself.

Comments

A project submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University Scholars Program

Recommended Citation

Sallee, Carl W., "Open-Minded Religiosity: Investigating the Link Between Religious Commitment and Thinking Style" (2016). Honors Projects. 55.
https://digitalcommons.spu.edu/honorsprojects/55

Copyright Status

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Additional Rights Information

Copyright held by author.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.