The Einstein effect provides global evidence for scientific source credibility effects and the influence of religiosity.

People tend to evaluate information from reliable sources more favourably, but it is unclear exactly how perceivers' worldviews interact with this source credibility effect. In a large and diverse cross-cultural sample (N = 10,195 from 24 countries), we presented participants with obscure, meaningless statements attributed to either a spiritual guru or a scientist. We found a robust global source credibility effect for scientific authorities, which we dub 'the Einstein effect': across all 24 countries and all levels of religiosity, scientists held greater authority than spiritual gurus. In addition, individual religiosity predicted a weaker relative preference for the statement from the scientist compared with the spiritual guru, and was more strongly associated with credibility judgements for the guru than the scientist. Independent data on explicit trust ratings across 143 countries mirrored our experimental findings. These findings suggest that irrespective of one's religious worldview, across cultures science is a powerful and universal heuristic that signals the reliability of information.

Credibility Enhancing Displays, religious scandal and the decline of Irish Catholic orthodoxy.

Credibility Enhancing Displays have been shown to be an important component in the transmission of empirically unverifiable cultural content such as religious beliefs. Decreased Credibility Enhancing Displays are a major predictor of religious decline. However, because declines in belief are often paired with the decreasing importance of religious institutions, existing research has not yet shown the effect of Credibility Enhancing Displays as separate from this institutional decline. Here, we assess the role of past Credibility Enhancing Display exposure among the baptised Catholic population of Ireland in predicting who retains a Catholic identity and religious beliefs among those who reject the Catholic Church. We find that leaving Catholicism outright (i.e. 'ex-Catholicism') is predicted by low Credibility Enhancing Display exposure, but rejecting the Church while retaining a Catholic identity (i.e. 'liminal Catholicism') and theistic belief is not. High perceived prevalence of clerical paedophiles (i.e. religious hypocrisy) predicts both groups similarly. Higher exposure to Credibility Enhancing Displays predicts higher orthodox Catholic beliefs and Catholic morality among Catholics, but with inconsistent and even negative effects among the other groups. High perceived prevalence of clerical paedophiles predicts the rejection of orthodox Catholic beliefs, but not the rejection of theism or a Catholic identity.