Only Believers Rely on God? A New Measure to Investigate Catholic Faith Automatic Associations and Their Relationship With Psychological Well-Being

Recent theorists have argued that theistic cognitions are so deeply embedded in human cultures that nearly all people experience implicit religious thoughts, even those who consider themselves as atheists or agnostics. This study aimed to evaluate the validity of a Catholic Faith Single Category Implicit Association Test (CF SC-IAT; Karpinski & Steinman, 2006), the degree of implicit-explicit dissociation across different religious groups (practicing and nonpracticing Catholics, agnostics and atheists), as well as the relationships between automatic faith associations and well-being indices. The study was conducted using a Roman sample composed of 142 subjects (106 women) who were an average of 24.74 years of age (SD = 10.66). Results showed: (a) an adequate level of reliability and convergent and criterion validity; (b) a certain degree of implicit-explicit dissociation in terms of a different localization of mean scores with respect to the neutral scale point, a different pattern of means across the religious groups, a small correlation between them, and independent contributions in the prediction of religion-related behaviors; and (c) significant correlations between implicit Catholic faith and 3 different indices of psychological well-being. Theoretical interpretations and limitations of the study were discussed.