What makes someone a fundamentalist

As the beneficial function of religious fundamentalism has been mainly demonstrated under conditions of stress or uncertainty Hood et al. NFC constitutes a fundamental epistemic motive behind how people process information from the social environment. Thus, intolerance of uncertainty is a fundamentally important element of cognitive closure.

Recently, this claim has been supported by neuropsychological analyses Kossowska et al. We predicted that high religious fundamentalism would be related to increased sensitivity to error-related events among those who are intolerant of uncertainty i. We hypothesized that the expected enhanced response to errors may be observed neurophysiologically.

Research using ERP has shown that the N, a negative-going deflection peaking around ms poststimulus onset, is primarily involved in processing information related to semantics and violations of meaning Kutas and Hillyard, ; Kutas and Federmeier, Although initially discovered when participants examined incongruent words in sentences, researchers have recently demonstrated that N is also elicited by incongruent words and knowledge about the self and the world van den Brink et al.

Due to its important role in the processing of assumption violations and expectancy, the N is a component of ERP that may also encode information related to emotional or social conflict White et al. We expected that religious fundamentalism among people intolerant to uncertainty would be related to more intense processing of error-related stimuli increased N amplitude compared to those who tolerate uncertainty well.

Therefore, error-related events are signals that there is a possible threat that the rules may be broken, which can lead to misbehaviors, or at least to deviations from valued standards. Thus, religious fundamentalists should be sensitive not only to their own errors, but also to any event in the environment that suggests possible errors.

In the EST, participants read the words, while being asked to name the color of the ink with which the words were written McKenna and Sharma, Throughout numerous variations of the EST, it has been consistently found that people have difficulty ignoring the meaning of a word while naming the color in which it is written Johnson and Hasher, ; Salo et al. It is then not surprising that when the words relate directly to the participants, higher response latencies result Logan and Goetsch, In our experiments we use neutral words, as well as words related to uncertainty, errors, and pondering.

We expected an interference effect for error-related words, but not for words related to uncertainty or pondering. As only words related to errors are inconsistent with fundamentalist views of correct behavior, they may be particularly unexpected, emotionally salient, or otherwise attention grabbing, and thus they might call for intensified processing of meaning, thereby elevating the N The experimental procedure followed the ethical principles described in the Declaration of Helsinki World Medical Organization, and was approved by the Research Ethic Committee at the Institute of Psychology, Jagiellonian University.

The written informed consent was obtained from the participants of this study. The study was run in For purpose of this study we decided to preselect participants based on their NFC levels as the effect we study is expected to occur only under uncertainty or among people sensitive for uncertainty.

In addition, due to the specificity of EEG studies they are costly, time-consuming and difficult for participants , we intentionally used small sample sizes see Preacher et al. All of the participants had normal or corrected to normal vision and normal hearing. All of the participants reported that they did not have any neurological or psychiatric disorders, including drug abuse, and that they were not on any medications during the experiment.

Data from three participants were not included in the analysis because on pre-processing data stage problems with recording and due to excessive muscle artifacts reviled in them. The remaining 39 participants 2 33 women, 6 men had a mean age of All of them self-reported as being religious, and as having been brought up in Christianity. The experiment was run in a sound-attenuated cabin. This scale defines religious fundamentalism along four dimensions: 1 the belief that there is a single set of religious teachings containing the fundamental, basic, intrinsic, inerrant truth about the deity and humanity; 2 this essential truth stands in opposition to evil, which must be actively fought; 3 the truth is to be followed in our current day according to the fundamental practices of the past; and 4 people who succeed in following these fundamental teachings have a special relationship with the deity.

All participants stayed within previous category of high and low NFC. This computerized version of the EST consisted of a series of words neutral terms and those related to errors, pondering, and uncertainty printed in one of four different colors yellow, red, green, or blue , and grouped in four blocks.

The words were selected based on a pilot study. The words used in the procedure are presented in Table 1. Participants were instructed to name the font color of a presented word and to neglect its meaning. After 28 practice trials for the training session numerals — one, two, etc. In each trial, a word was presented for ms; the maximum time for a response was restricted to ms.

The blocks were presented in a random order. The procedure was programmed in PsychoPy software. Additional four leads were located above and below the right eye and in the external canthi of both eyes.

The signal was sampled at Hz frequency and filtered using 46 Hz low-pass and 0. Evoked potentials were analyzed time-locked to the stimuli onset with baseline correction using the to 0 ms epoch. Differences of the resulting N values between uncertainty, errors, and ponder blocks and the neutral block were considered. As N is a negative component, the lower the index means the stronger interference. The emotional Stroop interference effect for ERP, RT and accuracy was computed as the difference between the experimental trials and the neutral words.

For each experimental measure separately for all trial types, i. The obtained results were used as dependent variables in all further analysis. To test our hypothesis, we ran a moderation model using PROCESS program Hayes, , model 1, bootstrap 10, with religious fundamentalism as a predictor and NFC as a moderator, for each of the dependent variables. Religious fundamentalism was centered. We then performed simple slope analyses because we were interested in the relationship between religious fundamentalists and N interference effect for words related to error for low and high NFC separately.

We present the illustration of the interaction between NFC and Fundamentalism on Stroop effect index based on real calculations, with provided by Process Macro data for plots on Figure 1. The more negative score, the stronger interference. The N component is defined as a difference black solid line between average activity within the — ms window for error-related dashed lines minus neutral dotted lines words. Gray polygons marks the time window of interests — ms , relative to words onset. Despite the absolute differences between values, the statistical significance was found only for the high NFC slope and not for the low NFC.

Without these statistical parameters, the ERP plots may be misleading on a first sight. Moreover, the presented plots are provided only for illustrative purposes, and were created with median split of the variables.

The results that are considered in the manuscript were computed using continuous variables. Researchers claim that there is a link between self-control and religion McCullough and Carter, They suggest that religion helps promote delayed gratification, prosocial tendencies, and other socially adaptive behaviors Baumeister and Exline, Explaining the link between self-control and religion, they suggest that by making salient the belief in an ever-watchful God Norenzayan and Shariff, religion may in effect encourage self-monitoring see McCullough and Willoughby, Religious concepts may also bring reputational concerns to the fore and this increased salience may in turn promote more self-monitoring Rounding et al.

The empirical support for these claims is, however, very limited and mixed. In this preliminary study we argue that religious beliefs, in a fundamentalist form, are linked to monitoring for errors, an important component of self-control Baumeister and Heatherton, Errors are aversive as they distort the pleasant and stable pictures one might have of the self and the world, and they thus destroy predictability.

In addition, for people with highly fundamentalist views that include standards for correct behaviors and suggest strict rules to follow and severe punishments for deviation from them, errors should pose a special threat.

A fundamentalist view may also make people more aware of the discrepancies between their imperfect performance and the rigorous standards of correct behavior. To further develop this idea, we focused on the link between religious fundamentalism and responses to error-related words.

Thus, the aim of the current study was to examine whether religious fundamentalism is related to altered self-control evinced as sensitivity to error-related words among participants highly intolerant of uncertainty high NFC compared to those with a high tolerance of uncertainty low NFC. The results of our study indicate that religious fundamentalism and intolerance to uncertainty differentiate electrophysiological measures related to error monitoring.

In particular, we found significantly larger error-related brain activity in the N for religious fundamentalism in the high NFC group decreased interference index , although N decreased for religious fundamentalism among participants low in NFC. Behaviorally, however, there were no significant differences between these groups on RTs or accuracy. Thus, our results may reflect an increased orienting response toward error-related stimuli, related to autonomic nervous system activity e.

Many studies have demonstrated the palliative function of religious beliefs, also in fundamentalist forms, under conditions of uncertainty e. Indeed, across samples as diverse as members of community churches, college students, and the hospitalized elderly, researchers have found that strong religious belief is connected with beneficial outcomes related to stress, such as better overall mental health and higher reported levels of stress-related growth for a review see Pargament, To build on this previous research, in our study we measured intolerance to uncertainty understood as the need for closure, believing that among people highly intolerant to uncertainty, religious fundamentalism may play this defensive role.

In this regard, increased sensitivity to error-related events may be considered a defensive mechanism. Detecting errors may allow one to bring their behavior in line with fundamentalist rules and standards.

Our findings are in line with a recent study by Senderecka et al. Thus, these researchers suggest that people who are highly religiously fundamentalist were more aware of their errors or found their errors more motivationally salient and attention-engaging. In such situations, both self-monitoring for errors and sensitivity to events that may potentially signal errors in the environment become especially important.

The studies were, however, conducted in Poland where Catholicism places considerable value on rule-following Strzelczyk, Thus, it is highly likely that our religious participants had this image of God in mind. An alternative interpretation could be also mentioned, which relates to the association of the N component to the semantic integration within a more general context. People scoring high on fundamentalism and NFC could be characterized with a general tendency to avoid information that relates to uncertainty, conflict or errors.

Such defense tendency would make any error-related semantic content less available in their cognitive system. Observed increase of N response to presentation of such words could be a manifest of incongruity with their self-concept, where there is a limited acceptance of conflicting tendencies and committing errors.

The attempts to filter out error-related information would also result in higher emotional incongruity after being directly exposed to such evaded words. We did not, however, observed significant effects on N by uncertainty-related words, which makes above interpretation more speculative. There are, however, a few important limitations of the study. The study shows a correlation between religious fundamentalism and response-related brain activity; however, the causal direction of this relationship is unclear.

Further research is needed to determine whether a fundamentalist mindset causes overactive performance monitoring or, on the contrary, excessive behavioral monitoring leads to religious fundamentalism. In addition, fundamentalism was studied on quite a homogeneous sample of young Polish Catholics.

Thus, studying this effect across religions and cultures will likely yield valuable insights. Next, although small, low-powered studies are endemic in neuroscience, they are also problematic Larson and Carbine, It was recently recognized that low sample size of studies, small effects or both, lead to low statistical power that negatively affects the probability that a nominally statistically significant finding actually reflects a true effect.

For example, Button et al. In addition, due to small sample size we could not reliably test the three-way interaction between the word type, NFC and religious fundamentalism that would allow us to verify the hypothesis that high religious fundamentalism accompanying high intolerance of uncertainty is related to stronger reactions to error-related words in comparison to ponder- or uncertainty-related words.

The results of such underpowered testing would be simply inconclusive. It is worth noticing, however, that we did not formulate the hypothesis in that way. Reactive to crises: Fundamentalists achieve power in times of actual or perceived cultural or national crises.

During the late s and early s, the identity of the American nation was under severe threat from communism in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. This provided an environment for the rise of the charismatic and demagogic anticommunist Republican senator from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy Simplistic solutions: Fundamentalists' interpretation of the world's problems and their solutions admit no ambiguity.

For example, Donald Trump, when seeking the presidential nomination, repeatedly gave simplistic solutions to complex political and economic problems facing the United States.

His responses were meant to reassure his audiences that he could quickly resolve their anxieties. Aggressive and intolerant of dissent: Not all fundamentalist movements are violent, but because they are intolerant of dissent, they have the potential to be violent. Terrorism is the worst form of violence; terrorists feel the need to express their violence through killing to "prove" authentic commitment to the values they stand for.

Political aims : To achieve their aims, fundamentalists seek to dominate the central executive and legislative power, either through democratic processes — for example, the Tea Party that around emerged in the United States, or by recourse to extreme violence, for example the Islamic revolution in Iran.

Skilled use of media: Ironically, fundamentalists often combine a commitment to a selectively imagined utopian past with a ready ability to use modern technology to propagate their beliefs. Following the March 22, , bombing in Brussels, ISIS effectively seized control of the world's media to circulate their admission of responsibility. Text selective: Fundamentalists select particular statements from the sacred texts of their religion or of their tradition, such as the U.

Constitution, to legitimate their actions and ignore other important points. Conspiracy-oriented: Not uncommonly, fundamentalists develop paranoid fantasies about the dangers their movements face. They see enemies where there are none. Timothy McVeigh, convicted of the bombing of the Alfred P. Populist charismatic leadership: Commonly, fundamentalist movements are led by populist, frequently anti-gay, 12 male charismatic or authoritarian leaders who show bullying qualities, such as Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini Followers see in their leaders all the qualities they yearn for.

Christ once used an incident to help his disciples understand how they themselves had unconsciously become trapped in fundamentalist thinking. The disciple John said to Jesus: "Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us" Mark John, like a good fundamentalist, thought that only the disciples could have such noble power, but Jesus is quick to respond: "Do not prevent him.

There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name who can at the same time speak ill of me. For whoever is not against us is for us" Mark 9: Here is a series of pastoral axioms that will help readers avoid fundamentalist attitudes and movements:. Axiom 1: Self-knowledge: We are all in danger of becoming fundamentalists.

Imprisoned in their prejudices, fundamentalists are absolutely certain they are right. We need to be alerted to the danger that our own prejudices, if left unchecked, can solidify into fundamentalist behavior. Fundamentalists cannot live with ambiguities because they demand impossible certitudes. There is little humor in their lives; they take themselves far too seriously. This is why the gift of authentic humor is necessary. People with an authentic gift of humor and self-mockery have a healthy skepticism; they are wary of simplistic answers to today's challenges.

Axiom 3: Be alert: Receive without prejudice migrants and parishioners with cultures different from our own, as Christ would wish. Many immigrants to Western countries today, particularly Hispanic and Muslim peoples, encounter xenophobia and discrimination, sometimes made worse by racist politicians and populist speakers. More than a third of white Catholics do not think undocumented immigrants should be permitted to stay, even when the strict conditions included in immigration reform proposals are met.

Pope Francis exhorts us: "Migrants present a particular challenge for me, since I am the pastor of a Church without frontiers … For this reason, I exhort all countries to a generous openness which, rather than fearing the loss of local identity, will prove capable of creating new forms of cultural synthesis. How beautiful are those cities which overcome paralysing mistrust, integrate those who are different and make this very integration a new factor of development! Axiom 4: Cultivate the difficult art of dialogue as an antidote to fundamentalism.

Dialogue is that "address and response between persons in which there is a flow of meaning between them in spite of all the obstacles that normally would block the relationship. The capacity to listen places people in contact with the wider dimensions of the world in which they live. Authentic listening is able to break through the rigid borders that imprison fundamentalist thinking; this allows people to engage with the world beyond.

In most attempted dialogues, "we don't listen; we just reload. Axiom 5: Recall the examples of Jesus Christ and St. Paul; they challenged fundamentalism in word and action. Jesus Christ, sensitively aware of prejudice and discrimination among fundamentalists of his time, deliberately challenges these crippling realities in various ways.

Scholars disagree about when and where fundamentalism began. As usual, the truth seems to be that it began in several places, independently, simultaneously. Several individuals and groups were thinking along similar lines, found each other, and coalesced around certain affinities. Pentecostals eventually joined in around the margins, uncomfortably.

None were Catholics or Eastern Orthodox. Very few, if any, were Anabaptists. Nothing in the previous paragraph is meant to imply that all of any of those groups were among the original fundamentalists.

To conclude that from the paragraph would be illogical. The point is that original fundamentalism was made up solely of Protestant Christians of many denominational identities and none with strong leanings toward revivalism and strict orthodoxy. Some leaned more toward Reformed orthodoxy; Arminians tended to lean more toward revivalism. What brought this disparate and even somewhat motley group together under a single banner was militant defense of conservative Protestantism against liberal theology and higher biblical criticism.

But unlike those, it was inside the churches and their colleges and seminaries. They were, in other words, early twentieth century Puritans. Exactly like the Puritans of the seventeenth century, the early fundamentalists believed the churches needed to be purged of heresy and everything linked with it symbolically. What did it mean to purge the churches and Christian organizations of everything symbolically linked with heresy?

And how to root out hidden heresies and heretics? These were articles written by leading fundamentalist scholars and ministers—defending what they saw as the essentials of Christianity with a strong anti-liberal flavor. However, ironically, many of the authors would later not fit the emerging fundamentalist profile. Gresham Machen. So that was early, original fundamentalism.

Most contemporary conservative evangelicals would probably have been fundamentalists then. He and his Texas friend J. Frank Norris joined hands across the Mason-Dixon Line imaginary as it is in the Midwest to forge a new, more militant, and exclusive form of fundamentalism.

There were those in that camp, however, who were more militant and exclusive than Machen and eventually broke off to found hyper-conservative groups and institutions. Carl McIntire was one of them. Because of this evolution within fundamentalism no pun intended! That is, true Christians will refuse Christian fellowship with outright heretics and apostates and theological modernists and liberals such as Harry Emerson Fosdick and his ilk belong in those categories. Fundamentalists began founding their own separate Protestant institutions and denominations, publishing houses and missionary agencies.

Throughout the s American fundamentalism especially flourished, but somewhat underground and almost invisible to the mainstream media and religious organizations such as the Federal Council of Churches.

But something new began to happen within the fundamentalist movement that further fractured it and, in my estimation, anyway, killed it as a movement. I believe the fundamentalist movement broke apart into several, often competing, movements practicing different degrees of separationism in the s and s. However, the fundamentalist movement left behind an ethos. And that is how I identify a fundamentalist—by his or her embodiment of the fundamentalist ethos. He will probably seek out other fundamentalist ministers for fellowship and cooperation.

These fundamentalist alliances tend to be small and fracture easily because of disagreements about fine points of doctrine, practice and Bible interpretation. I have met people who call themselves fundamentalists who do not exhibit most or any of those traits criteria. But in certain contexts I would not call them fundamentalists because that will automatically be misunderstood. Here is an anecdote to illustrate that. About fifteen years ago I noticed that a seminary historically noted for being fundamentalist in the historical-theological sense had set up a table in the evangelical college where I then taught to recruit undergraduates.

I approached the recruiter, a relatively young early middle aged employee of the seminary. I told him I would have difficulty recommending that any of my students attend his seminary.