This site needs JavaScript to work properly. Cory J. Clark, Bo M. Winegard, Jordan Beardslee, Roy F. Baumeister, and Azim F. Shariff In two studies, Clark and colleagues found that religion seems to regulate violent behavior in societies in which the average IQ is lower but not among societies in which the average IQ is higher. Calogero asked women to rank the importance of observable attributes (e.g., weight) and unobservable attributes (e.g., health) to their self-concept and used the difference between the sum of ranks of unobservable attributes and the sum of ranks of observable attributes as a measure of self-objectification. Throughout history artists, philosophers, and poets have contrasted human depravity with the moral perfection of God, the only force that could rein in the tempestuous impulses of humans. The ability to resist eating the cookie in the dependence condition was between the levels of the other two conditions, suggesting that in the interdependence condition, children delayed gratification because they were depending on their partners and because of the feelings of commitment this tended to generate. Cory Clark (, Thou shall not kill: An analysis of religion, violence, and IQ - The Boston Globe. Religion is by no means the only — or even the best — force to tame people’s worst impulses, but it may yet serve some violence-deterring value in many societies across the globe.
J Interpers Violence. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Finally, these data do not suggest that declines in religious participation are inevitably harmful in particular societies. These findings were seen as a failure to replicate previous results and as suggesting that children’s ability to delay gratification might not be closely related to academic achievement. Study 2, a multiverse analysis (171 models) using modern data (97-195 countries) and various controls, consistently confirmed that lower rates of religiosity were more strongly associated with higher homicide rates in countries with lower average IQ. They discuss how the analytic decisions they made seem to justify the discrepancy of results between their study and Watts et al.’s and offer a novel interpretation for the classic findings that associate early ability to delay gratification with higher academic achievement, suggesting that the marshmallow test predicts future achievement because it reflects aspects of a child’s early environment (social support) that are important over the long term. Clipboard, Search History, and several other advanced features are temporarily unavailable. RETRACTED: Declines in Religiosity Predict Increases in Violent Crime—but Not Among Countries With Relatively High Average IQ Cory J. Clark, Bo M. Winegard, Jordan Beardslee, Roy F. Baumeister, and Azim F. Shariff These patterns held when using three different measures of country-level IQ, three different measures of country-level religious participation, and controlling for other related factors such as wealth, inequality, and educational differences between countries. You may find the retraction notice here: https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/psychological_science/clark-2020-retraction-editorial.