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Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety()

Growing evidence indicates that religious belief helps individuals to cope with stress and anxiety. But is this effect specific to supernatural beliefs, or is it a more general function of belief — including belief in science? We developed a measure of belief in science and conducted two experiments...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Farias, Miguel, Newheiser, Anna-Kaisa, Kahane, Guy, de Toledo, Zoe
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Academic Press 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3807800/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24187384
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.05.008
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author Farias, Miguel
Newheiser, Anna-Kaisa
Kahane, Guy
de Toledo, Zoe
author_facet Farias, Miguel
Newheiser, Anna-Kaisa
Kahane, Guy
de Toledo, Zoe
author_sort Farias, Miguel
collection PubMed
description Growing evidence indicates that religious belief helps individuals to cope with stress and anxiety. But is this effect specific to supernatural beliefs, or is it a more general function of belief — including belief in science? We developed a measure of belief in science and conducted two experiments in which we manipulated stress and existential anxiety. In Experiment 1, we assessed rowers about to compete (high-stress condition) and rowers at a training session (low-stress condition). As predicted, rowers in the high-stress group reported greater belief in science. In Experiment 2, participants primed with mortality (vs. participants in a control condition) reported greater belief in science. In both experiments, belief in science was negatively correlated with religiosity. Thus, some secular individuals may use science as a form of “faith” that helps them to deal with stressful and anxiety-provoking situations.
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spelling pubmed-38078002013-11-01 Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety() Farias, Miguel Newheiser, Anna-Kaisa Kahane, Guy de Toledo, Zoe J Exp Soc Psychol FlashReport Growing evidence indicates that religious belief helps individuals to cope with stress and anxiety. But is this effect specific to supernatural beliefs, or is it a more general function of belief — including belief in science? We developed a measure of belief in science and conducted two experiments in which we manipulated stress and existential anxiety. In Experiment 1, we assessed rowers about to compete (high-stress condition) and rowers at a training session (low-stress condition). As predicted, rowers in the high-stress group reported greater belief in science. In Experiment 2, participants primed with mortality (vs. participants in a control condition) reported greater belief in science. In both experiments, belief in science was negatively correlated with religiosity. Thus, some secular individuals may use science as a form of “faith” that helps them to deal with stressful and anxiety-provoking situations. Academic Press 2013-11 /pmc/articles/PMC3807800/ /pubmed/24187384 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.05.008 Text en © 2013 The Authors https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Open Access under CC BY 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/) license
spellingShingle FlashReport
Farias, Miguel
Newheiser, Anna-Kaisa
Kahane, Guy
de Toledo, Zoe
Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety()
title Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety()
title_full Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety()
title_fullStr Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety()
title_full_unstemmed Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety()
title_short Scientific faith: Belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety()
title_sort scientific faith: belief in science increases in the face of stress and existential anxiety()
topic FlashReport
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3807800/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24187384
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.05.008
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