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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1509388
This article is part of the Research Topic Spirituality and Religion: Implications for Mental Health View all 30 articles

The power of belief? Evidence of reduced fear extinction learning in catholic God believers

Provisionally accepted
Carmelo Mario Vicario Carmelo Mario Vicario 1*Laura Culicetto Laura Culicetto 1Chiara Lucifora Chiara Lucifora 2Francesca Ferraioli Francesca Ferraioli 1Simona Massimino Simona Massimino 1Gabriella Martino Gabriella Martino 1Francesco Tomaiuolo Francesco Tomaiuolo 1Alessandra Maria Falzone Alessandra Maria Falzone 1
  • 1 University of Messina, Messina, Italy
  • 2 University of Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Religious beliefs can shape how people process fear. Yet the psychophysiological mechanisms underlying this phenomenon remain poorly understood. We investigated fear learning and extinction processes in a group of individuals who professed a belief in God, compared to nonbelievers. Using a virtual reality Pavlovian fear conditioning/extinction task, we measured neurovegetative activity associated with these forms of associative learning. Our finding shows reduced fear extinction among God believers, compared to non-believers. This suggests that the general mechanism of fear extinction learning is suppressed in these individuals.Importantly, this effect was not explained by state or trait anxiety scores. These findings align with previous evidence linking religiosity and spirituality with the neural circuit of fear and suggest that religiosity may be associated with weaker inhibitory learning processes related to fear.

    Keywords: God belief, Religious ideology, pavlovian fear conditioning, reduced fear extinction learning, weaker inhibitory learning process

    Received: 10 Oct 2024; Accepted: 10 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Vicario, Culicetto, Lucifora, Ferraioli, Massimino, Martino, Tomaiuolo and Falzone. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Carmelo Mario Vicario, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

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