Abstract

Religious beliefs can influence how people perceive reality and make decisions, potentially contributing to the emergence of cognitive biases or distortions and, consequently, affecting memory. The literature linking cognitive biases, memory, and religious beliefs is limited, often focusing on specific biases and their influence on two of these variables. Addressing this gap, the present study aimed to investigate the correlation between these variables in Dominican adults. A virtual form was administered to a sample of 129 participants, utilizing the Colombian version of the Belief System Inventory (SBI-14-Col), the Spanish version of the Davos Assessment of Cognitive Biases Scale (DACOBS), and the Self-Monitoring Scale for Memory Systems (SMSQ). A correlational analysis was done, and its results revealed a positive correlation between religious beliefs and memory, indicating that stronger religious beliefs may be associated with enhanced memory. Moreover, religious beliefs were also linked to a higher tendency toward the jumping-to-conclusions bias, which, in turn, was associated with an elevated subjective assessment of memory. These findings should be interpreted with caution, given that the non-probabilistic sampling, the religious and cultural homogeneity of the sample, as well as the low reliability observed in some subscales, may have influenced the strength of the observed associations. The aim is to expand the existing knowledge in previous literature and encourage future research with a larger and more diverse sample in terms of culture and religious beliefs, using instruments and experimental designs tailored to the characteristics of the participant population.

Keywords:
Cognition; religious belief; thinking; memory; cognitive biases