Lower average mentalizing in men explains part of the gender gap in religiosity

Evidence

Other than people high on the autistic spectrum, what’s another group of people whose mentalizing skills aren’t as elaborated? These people are called men. Of course, there is a great deal of variability in mentalizing skills among men, but in various tests of mentalizing, men on average score lower than women. Not surprisingly, men also are overrepresented on the high end of the autism spectrum. If mentalizing deficits erode the intuitive support for belief in God, then we should expect more disbelief in men compared to women. Actually, we know this already. Sociologists have known for more than 50 years that on average, men are less religious than women. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 592

If mentalizing deficits erode the intuitive support for belief in God, then we should expect more disbelief in men compared to women. Actually, we know this already. Sociologists have known for more than 50 years that on average, men are less religious than women. There are many more atheists among men than among women (atheist conventions are not a good place for bachelors to meet women). There could be several reasons for this gender gap in religiosity, but what we wanted to know was whether differences in mentalizing are a contributing cause. They were. In fact, statistically, we found that the lower levels of belief among men were explained by lower levels of mentalizing, even after taking into account various demographic factors such as age, education, and income. — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 592

Categorization

• XREF: The gender-religiosity gap, tied to a specific mechanism, bears on why apostasy and religious authority have historically been a male-dominated theatre — relevant to the reader’s Jesuit storyline.
• SHARE: For a friend working in psychology of religion or gender studies — the mentalizing-deficit explanation for the male religiosity gap is a narrow statistical finding with a striking punchline.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Norenzayan, Ara, Big gods - how religion transformed…, 592