Neural Markers of Relicious Construction

• Religion pros: have better mental health, physical health, lower mortality rates
• Religion cons: terrorist attacks, wars, conviction
• Religious conviction provides relief from uncertainty - it reduces anxiety, but then we ignore the inconsistencies.
• A system that responds to out comes different than what we expected is in the anterior cingulate cortex, an "alarm" is activated which produces anxiety
• Religion as xanax:
• we have ideals, it reduces our experience of error, and we can become more extreme in our convictions
• religion is too structured and rigid that any inconsistencies are restructured to fit their existing beliefs.
• Religious conviction reduces uncertainty because it minimized the ACC response to error, like an anti-anxiety pill.
• Study 1: Religious Zeals
• Assess people's religious conviction
• They used the Stroop.
• People with religious zeal had less ACC reaction to an error, and responded more accurate. They sacrificed speed for accuracy.
• Study 2: Belief in God
• greater belief in God was correlated with less ACC activation too, when all other factors were controlled for. 
• So, people who believe in God overall have neural signs of lower anxiety.
• Causes? Religion lowers ACC arousal, not vise versa.
• Maybe not specific to religion, probably strong convictions of anything.
• Makes us prone to a mental set, though.