Kossowska Małgorzata, Szwed Paulina, Wyczesany Miroslaw, Czarnek Gabriela, Wronka Eligiusz
Department of Philosophy, Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland.
Front Psychol. 2018 Mar 27;9:285. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00285. eCollection 2018.
Examining the relationship between brain activity and religious fundamentalism, this study explores whether fundamentalist religious beliefs increase responses to error-related words among participants intolerant to uncertainty (i.e., high in the need for closure) in comparison to those who have a high degree of toleration for uncertainty (i.e., those who are low in the need for closure). We examine a negative-going event-related brain potentials occurring 400 ms after stimulus onset (the N400) due to its well-understood association with the reactions to emotional conflict. Religious fundamentalism and tolerance of uncertainty were measured on self-report measures, and electroencephalographic neural reactivity was recorded as participants were performing an emotional Stroop task. In this task, participants read neutral words and words related to uncertainty, errors, and pondering, while being asked to name the color of the ink with which the word is written. The results confirm that among people who are intolerant of uncertainty (i.e., those high in the need for closure), religious fundamentalism is associated with an increased N400 on error-related words compared with people who tolerate uncertainty well (i.e., those low in the need for closure).
本研究通过考察大脑活动与宗教原教旨主义之间的关系，探讨与不确定性容忍度高（即结束需求低）的参与者相比，原教旨主义宗教信仰是否会增加不确定性容忍度低（即结束需求高）的参与者对与错误相关词汇的反应。我们研究刺激开始后400毫秒出现的负向事件相关脑电位（N400），因为它与对情绪冲突的反应之间的关联已得到充分理解。宗教原教旨主义和不确定性容忍度通过自我报告测量，参与者在执行情绪斯特鲁普任务时记录脑电图神经反应。在这个任务中，参与者阅读中性词以及与不确定性、错误和思考相关的词汇，同时被要求说出书写该词的墨水颜色。结果证实，在不确定性容忍度低（即结束需求高）的人群中，与不确定性容忍度高（即结束需求低）的人相比，宗教原教旨主义与对与错误相关词汇的N400增加有关。
