God references slipped into tests decreased student’s belief that they controlled their own destiny, researchers report, but made them more resistant to junk food temptation.
via God’s Situational Effects « The Situationist.
The studies were done at a Canadian university (University of Waterloo) with engineering students, and the results were independent of the student’s piety or religious beliefs. (See the link for more details.)
I wonder if the results would differ with, say, students in a writing program, or accounting students.
Don’t you think sometimes that researchers ask extraordinary questions? I fear there could be way too much of a false correlation in those results. Like the crime rate and membership of the Church of England – that makes an excellent false correlation – or inflation and dysentery in Scotland – apparently they are statistically but not really causally linked!
Oh those correlations made me laugh! Yes you’re absolutely right: causality is not the same at all.
I am going to sound like a really old person here, but:
What will they think of next?
My kids can’t imagine a world without computers, but when I was a kid, I used a slide rule! That’s old.