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Religion and Verbal Ability


Darren Sherkat of Southern Illinois University has recently published his research on the correlation between religious belief and verbal ability. As he points out in his abstract, 'Religion has a powerful influence on learning and development, and this provides an important cultural foundation for stratification processes.'


In analysing data from the 1984-2006 General Social Surveys, Sherkat discovered that inerrantist beliefs and sectarian affiliations seem to have a substantial negative effect on verbal ability. He suggests that the close social networks insisted upon by sectarian religions have an adverse effect on learning and development.

What do you think? What has been your experience?

The full article can be purchased here.
Picture credit: Arty Smokes on Flickr

Friday, May 29, 2009 | Labels: , , , , |

 

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Scar
Scarlett de Courcier is a researcher in Psychology & History of Religion, looking into the linguistic development of religious terms and how they affect people's understanding of their own spirituality. She also works for West Sussex Youth Cabinet, helping young people to get involved in democracy; manages an international network of publishers at a new media advertising company in London; and is a freelance proofreader, translator and writer. She loves all her jobs, but when people ask what she does and she replies “I'm in advertising”, she always looks down and slightly to the right. Scar is sickeningly happily married, and lives by the sea with her husband. In her spare time, she likes to read (anything and everything, but a lot of crime fiction), cook, blog, swim, run, sit by the sea at night, sing, write poetry, and sit down with a nice cup of tea. She speaks French, English, Romany, German, Spanish and Italian to varying levels of proficiency, and she has just taken up Sanskrit. She is a petrolhead and is hopelessly addicted to caffeine.
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