Is Religion Wishful Thinking? Evidence Supporting Freud

The Comforts of Religion

A believer's most revealing argument for the existence of God is that “without God, life would be meaningless” because it is an admission that their faith is determined by what makes them feel good. 

Psychologists have known for decades that people easily believe what they want to be true, and struggle to believe what they don't want to be true. They call it motivated reasoning: the unconscious biases that shape how we attend to, recall, and justify information that aligns with our wishes.

Sigmund Freud was one of the earliest thinkers to associate this mindset with religion. He said that “religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from its readiness to fit in with our instinctual wishful impulses.”

Freud named some of these wishes when he said that religion explains “the riddles of this world with enviable completeness” and assures the believer “that a careful Providence will watch over his life and will compensate him in a future existence for any frustration he suffers here.” In my view, a complete list would include wishes to:

1.     Have the security, protection, and company of a powerful being (or beings).

2.     Understand the origins of the world and of human beings.

3.     Understand why bad things happen.

4.     Have some small power to stop bad things from happening (e.g., prayer and ritual).

5.     Know that justice will ultimately be served to those who deserve it.

6.     Exist beyond the death of the physical body.

7.     See loved ones again in an afterlife.

8.     Know that there is a perfect future for oneself if the correct path is followed.

9.     Know that life has meaning and purpose.

10.     Have direction and figures to emulate (e.g., prophets) in the fulfilment of that purpose.

11.     Know that ourselves, humanity, and the Earth are a significant part of the universe.

12.     Know that we are morally superior compared to nonbelievers.

13.     Know that we are fundamentally superior to other forms of life (e.g., by having a soul).
    
    

Most religions include myths, rituals, and doctrines that can satisfy these wishes. However, circumstances may be required to make them persuasive. For example, experiencing injustice might make beliefs about karma and eternal punishment more persuasive.

Accordingly, several psychological studies have found that feeling unpleasant (anxiety, depression, grief, guilt, etc.) can cause people to turn to religion. It may be that feeling unpleasant increases the need for comfort, and thus, the motivation to believe in myths that provide this comfort. These studies will now be summarized.

Evidence to Support Freud's Wishful Thinking Theory

The quality of evidence that is provided by a psychological study depends on its methods. Establishing cause and effect and replicating real-world conditions are the most critical factors.

Correlational studies

A correlational study does not determine cause and effect but it usually has real-world validity. For example, it might find that religion is popular in poorer countries. Thus, either poor people turn to religion, or religious people are not financially savvy, or both religion and poverty are caused by another factor.

1. Religiosity is in fact highest in the world's poorest nations. This survey asked about religion's importance in the respondents' lives, which is significant because some studies have found that poverty is associated with the strength of religious beliefs but not the number who believe.

2. A further study found that people participate less in religious activities in countries with more welfare spending. The suggestion is that welfare provides psychological relief from financial insecurity, and that religion performs this function when welfare is absent. The study also found that warfare, disease, economic disparity, and high infant mortality rates were associated with greater religious attendance.

3. The view that religion provides comfort in these situations is supported by correlations between religiosity and individual life-satisfaction, although some research suggests a more complicated relationship in which satisfaction is only higher when the religion is popular and embedded in the community. Indeed, a separate study found that religious individuals only had greater self-esteem and psychological adjustment than nonbelievers in cultures that value religiosity.

4. A summary of the literature on the therapeutic effects of prayer found a correlation between religiosity and subjective feelings of well-being.

5. A study found that religiosity was associated with less anxiety in four cultures.

6. Religiosity, particularly when providing a sense of purpose in life, was associated with greater acceptance of death among older adults, while another study found that a “religious sense of hope” could explain lower death anxiety among older adults.

7. A study found that trait anxiety (proneness to anxiety) was higher in individuals who had undergone sudden religious conversions compared to gradual conversions or the nonreligious. Furthermore, regular churchgoers exhibited less anxiety (despite any proneness to it), suggesting a mood-management effect.

8. A study found that reciting psalms reduced anxiety among women in a war zone, but did not reduce anxiety among women who had left the war zone.

9. A study compared religious supernatural beings with fictional supernatural beings and found that people perceived the former as more benevolent and with traits that may facilitate motivated reasoning.

Time series studies

Some correlational studies attempt to establish cause and effect. For example, longitudinal surveys are conducted more than once to see how the same people have changed over time. Less thorough studies simply ask participants how they felt before compared to now.

1. A study asked 106 young-adults about their reasons for converting to 9 different fringe religions. In total, 46 reported joining because they felt sad, lonely, rejected, or alienated; 43 reported a lack of meaning in their lives; 36 spoke of a personal crisis; and 32 cited the happiness of current members. Following conversion, 77 reported a feeling of security and self-confidence; 64 reported greater calmness, happiness, and self-growth; and 51 reported better interpersonal relationships and a sense of belonging. Other reasons to do with spiritual growth (e.g., “finding God”) and religious experiences were less popular.

2. Consistent with the above, other studies have found that low self-esteem and relationship troubles are common precursors to religious conversion, and that conversion is associated with better psychological outcomes.

3. Guilt is another unpleasant emotion that can precede conversion. A study found that 55% of sudden religious converts had previously suffered with guilt, compared with 8.5% from the control group.

4. Various studies have found that religious belief increases after distressing life events such as bereavement, drug addiction, incarceration, and near-death experiences.

5. A longitudinal study found that religious faith increased in areas affected by the Christchurch earthquake in New Zealand, even though faith in other areas of the country decreased. There were similar effects reported after the 9/11 attacks.

6. Another longitudinal study found that women who initially identified as anxious or avoidant were more likely to have found “a new relationship with God” before the end of the study.

7. A historical analysis found that threatening events (e.g., the Great Depression) preceded increases in the production of superstitious literature (e.g., about astrology).

8. Another historical analysis found that comforting religious beliefs (e.g., about immortality and divine justice) were more likely to be retained in successive Abrahamic religions (Judaism to Christianity to Islam).

Experimental studies

An experiment causes something to measure its effect. Although cause and effect can therefore be established, the artificial nature of the cause can mean the study lacks real-world validity.

1. An experiment caused people to feel a lack of control (e.g., by recalling an experience in which they lacked control) and found that, compared to a control group, they were more likely to see illusory patterns and to develop superstitions about random stimuli (e.g., that knocking on wood leads to a positive outcome). The experiment showed how an unpleasant state of mind can motivate people to believe in a level of order that does not exist.

2. An experiment found that causing people to experience uncertainty, randomness, and a lack of control led to greater belief in the efficacy of rituals. Rituals, which are often part of religions, may provide people with feelings of control (e.g., in people with OCD).

3. People were presented with evidence designed to disconfirm their beliefs for or against paranormal abilities. Believers and nonbelievers in the paranormal both found the disagreeable information unpleasant, but only believers employed selective learning (e.g., were less able to recall it), suggesting a bias such as wishful thinking.

4. A similar experiment presented religious participants with disconfirming evidence. The unpleasantness they felt decreased when given the opportunity to endorse transcendental arguments (e.g., God works in mysterious ways), suggesting that belief in such arguments can reduce discomfort.

5. An experiment found that people who felt a lack of control reported greater belief in the existence of a controlling god. However, an attempt to replicate this experiment was not entirely successful.

6. An experiment found that “anxious uncertainty threats” (e.g., writing about a difficult dilemma in one's life) caused participants to increase their theistic, afterlife, and supernatural justice beliefs to reduce the anxiety and uncertainty, especially among people with dispositional anxiety and uncertainty aversion.

7. Neuroscientists measured “anterior cingulated cortex” (ACC) activity in the minds of religious people. The ACC produces distress signals in response to error-detection, expectancy violation, and conflict. The scientists found that ACC signals decreased when religious beliefs were expressed (i.e., religion is a comfort). However, an attempt to replicate the study was unsuccessful. 

8. An experiment found that people who were asked to think about death exhibited greater belief in supernatural beings and divine intervention than a control group. The effect occurred even when the beings were from another culture, suggesting that it was not the “worldview defence” predicted by terror management theory.

9. A separate experiment achieved similar results, with thoughts of death leading to greater afterlife and theistic beliefs. The experimenter also discounted “worldview defence” because, unlike the above study, even nonreligious people exhibited greater belief.

10. An experiment helped to explain when “worldview defence” occurs. Thoughts of death caused believers and nonbelievers to show “worldview defence” (stronger religious and secular beliefs, respectively) but only when beliefs were measured on a questionnaire. When measured implicitly (unconsciously) with a task that associates supernatural concepts with “existence,” religious belief increased for everyone.

11. Consistent with the above, an experiment found that when religious belief was strengthened, death anxiety decreased for believers and increased for nonbelievers when measured with a questionnaire. However, death anxiety decreased for everyone when an implicit (unconscious) measure of anxiety was used.

12. A series of studies found that being religious was associated with psychological repression. Much like wishful thinking, repression involves the unconscious tendency to reinterpret negative thoughts and events in positive ways. Religious people's belief in gods was partially explained by their downplaying of a god's threatening (e.g., punishing) traits and emphasis of beneficial (e.g., loving) traits. The same results occurred when a tendency to think positively was experimentally induced.

Supporters of the View That Religion is Wishful Thinking

Freud was not alone in viewing religion as wishful thinking; notable predecessors like Marx and Hume offered similar critiques. This perspective arises because religious beliefs: (1) address serious concerns about death, safety, justice, fate, and purpose, (2) cannot be verified through observation, (3) are defended with great zeal and emotion, and (4) are open to many interpretations (e.g., whichever “mysterious way” is wished for at a given time).

“Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the people.” — Karl Marx (1843)

“The primary religion of mankind arises chiefly from an anxious fear of future events; and it is easy to conceive what ideas will naturally be entertained of invisible, unknown powers when men are subject to dismal anxieties of any kind.” — David Hume (1757)

Closing Remarks

Whether religion offers genuine solace, a superficial cure, or merely the illusion of comfort is secondary to explaining why people believe; in any case, its appeal remains undeniable.

Sigmund Freud's wishful thinking theory is well-supported by the studies cited above, although critics might ask why some parts of religion are discomforting (hell, demons, divine punishment, etc.), how self-delusion survived human evolution, and how wishful thinking actually works in the brain .

Regardless, if heaven quells existential dread, hell supplies justice, gods bestow protection, and prayer is the fantasy of control, then the comforts of religion are a great motivator to believe, and a great way for scientists to explain why believing is foolish.