Study finds the nonreligious can be more close-minded than the religious https://t.co/FfXlvGuLuT
— PsyPost.org (@PsyPost) June 24, 2017
But two other measures of closed-mindedness told a different story.
Atheists tended to show greater intolerance of contradiction, meaning when they were presented with two seemingly contradictory statements they rated one as very true and the other as very false. They also showed less propensity to be able to imagine arguments contrary to their own position and find them somewhat convincing.
“In our study, the relationship between religion and closed-mindedness depended on the specific aspect of closed-mindedness,” Uzarevic told PsyPost. “The nonreligious compared to the religious seemed to be less closed minded when it came to explicitly measured certainty in one’s beliefs. However, and somewhat surprisingly, when it came to subtly measured inclination to integrate views that were diverging and contrary to one’s own perspectives, it was the religious who showed more openness. In sum, closed-mindedness (or at least some aspects of it) may not be reserved only for the religious. Moreover, in some aspects, the nonreligious may even ‘outperform’ the religious.”