Personality and Social Psychology Review 17(4) 325–354 © 2013 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc. Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1088868313497266 pspr.sagepub.com Article For more than eight decades, researchers have been investi- gating the association between intelligence levels and mea- sures of religious faith. This association has been studied among individuals of all ages, using a variety of measures. Although a substantial body of research has developed, this literature has not been systematically meta-analyzed. Furthermore, proposed explanations for the intelligence– religiosity association have not been systematically reviewed. In the present work, our goal was to meta-analyze studies on the relation between intelligence and religiosity and present possible explanations for this relation. Following Gottfredson (1997), we define intelligence as the “ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience” (p. 13). This definition of intelligence is often referred to as analytic intelligence or the g factor—the first factor that emerges in factor analyses of IQ subtests (e.g., Carroll, 1993; Spearman, 1904). Other newly identified types of intelligence, such as creative intelligence (Sternberg, 1999, 2006) or emotional intelligence (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 1999), are out of the scope of the present work because the available studies on the relation between intelli- gence and religiosity examined only analytic intelligence. In addition, there are still disputes about the nature of nonana- lytic intelligence (see recent exchange between Mayer, Caruso, Panter, & Salovey, 2012, and Nisbett et al., 2012a). Religiosity can be defined as the degree of involvement in some or all facets of religion. According to Atran and Norenzayan (2004), such facets include beliefs in supernatu- ral agents, costly commitment to these agents (e.g., offering of property), using beliefs in those agents to lower existential anxieties such as anxiety over death, and communal rituals that validate and affirm religious beliefs. Of course, some individuals may express commitment or participate in com- munal rituals for reasons other than religious beliefs. This issue was put into sharp relief by Allport and Ross (1967), who drew a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic reli- gious orientations. Intrinsic orientation is the practice of reli- gion for its own sake; extrinsic religion is the use of religion as a means to secular ends. This distinction will be referred to in later sections. Since the inception of IQ tests early in the 20th century, intelligence has continuously occupied a central position in psychological research (for a summary of the field, see 497266PSR 17 4 10.1177/1088868313497266<italic>Personality and Social Psychology Review</italic>Zuckerman et al. research-article 2013 1 University of Rochester, NY, USA 2 Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA Corresponding Author: Miron Zuckerman, Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, PO Box 270266, Meliora 431, Rochester, NY 14627, USA. Email: Miron@psych.rochester.edu The Relation Between Intelligence and Religiosity: A Meta-Analysis and Some Proposed Explanations Miron Zuckerman 1 , Jordan Silberman 1 , and Judith A. Hall 2 Abstract A meta-analysis of 63 studies showed a significant negative association between intelligence and religiosity. The association was stronger for college students and the general population than for participants younger than college age; it was also stronger for religious beliefs than religious behavior. For college students and the general population, means of weighted and unweighted correlations between intelligence and the strength of religious beliefs ranged from -.20 to -.25 (mean r = -.24). Three possible interpretations were discussed. First, intelligent people are less likely to conform and, thus, are more likely to resist religious dogma. Second, intelligent people tend to adopt an analytic (as opposed to intuitive) thinking style, which has been shown to undermine religious beliefs. Third, several functions of religiosity, including compensatory control, self-regulation, self-enhancement, and secure attachment, are also conferred by intelligence. Intelligent people may therefore have less need for religious beliefs and practices. Keywords intelligence, religiosity, meta-analysis at Aarhus Universitets Biblioteker / Aarhus University Libraries on July 21, 2015 psr.sagepub.com Downloaded from